


Every Earthly Thing Will Vanish

by geckoholic



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Mindfuck, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Restraints, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: A hand on his shoulder has Dick startling awake, and he's ready to lash out on instinct alone before Jason's face slowly swims into focus. The last vestiges of the dream flicker up before Dick's eyes, merging with the sight in front of him like a double-exposed photo, somehow calling the assumption into question that it's okay, he's safe, Jason is safe, no need to be on the defense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest with you, I'm still not sure how this fic came into being. It's been a very long time since I've written something this dark, much less halfway regularly, and these days I don't even read it that much. But this thing latched onto my brain and wouldn't let go until I sat down to write it, so here we are. And let me point out that potentially triggering content lies within, written in somewhat graphic detail. I tried to not make it too.... voyeuristic and go easy on explicit details of the assault, because my main draw here is the fallout and the psychology of the whole thing, but there's still **potentially triggering material** in there. I'm super not kidding. Please, please don't read it if you think that might be a problem for you. 
> 
> I'll add more tags and characters as we go along. 
> 
> This is based on a manga called In These Words. If you've read it, congratulations, you know what the twist will be. And if you haven't, well, you might want to go throw some money at it and read it first. It'll spoil the fic to some degree and it's brutal and graphic but it's excellent and beautifully drawn and well worth a read if you can stomach its contents. 
> 
> Beta-read by beta-lactamase and eternusmysterium, both of whom have also suffered through excessive brainstorming sessions and will likely suffer through more before this is done. Thank you both!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Wanderer" by City Saints.
> 
>  --
> 
> Recently enternusmysterium made a playlist for this fic, please click [here](http://eternusmysterium.tumblr.com/post/158171140487/jaydick-mix-based-on-geckoholics-fanfic-every) to get to the links. And you should do that. Because it's awesome and fitting and its existence fills me with glee. Please give it a listen!

Dick wakes because he's losing his balance. Gravity rushes in on him, the earth tilts to the side, and he's sliding off... something. His hands flail out, gripping the soft surface he's sitting on. He steadies himself, and it takes a moment for his surroundings to come into focus, for that tiny instinctive spark of panic to abate. There's nothing to be afraid of; he's siting on a rolling desk chair, and must have been drifting to the side while he dozed. Rubbing at his eyes, he looks around: the room he is in isn't instantly familiar, but it's not foreign either. He's been here before. He's safe here, of that he's sure, and with that realization he relaxes and takes a second, more thorough look, scanning the room with intent now. There are no windows. The only source of light is a row of computer screens. Naked stone walls, some remainders of wallpaper hanging of them in places. A couch and a table, and a door, hanging ajar, that leads to a kitchen, and two more that are currently closed. Someone's sitting in front of the computer, obscured to a silhouette and thrown into shadow, but their shape also seems familiar. Dick lets his gaze roam over the IT setup and notices the helmet sat by a pull-out keyboard, the jacket strewn over the back of the chair. 

“Sleeping on the job?” Jason says, turning around, like he's felt Dick's gaze on him. “I'm deeply disappointed in you, Grayson.” 

Thusly accused, Dick sits up straight on his chair and clears his throat. He's struggling to remember what's going on, why he's here, what they're working on, but he minute-napped his way through enough all-nighters to be able to convincingly cover the fact that he momentarily lost the thread. 

“Of course not,” he lies, and stretches out his arms over his head, biting down first on a yawn, then on a slight wince. He's oddly sore, muscles protesting the movement. It's not just his arms; his wrists sting, and his lower back throbs something fierce. Dick's tempted to roll his uniform up to at least check his wrists, but that'd mean admitting just how lost he is right now, which, no way. 

Jason spins around on his chair a little further and hefts an eyebrow, disapproving but with a hint of amusement on his face. That's par for the course; the younger birds tend to be delighted when Dick proves he's also a mere mortal, and not the unattainable ideal Bruce somehow built him into. 

“Sure,” he says, tone just a bit mocking. “So exactly where did you stop paying attention?” 

Routing through his memories, Dick comes up empty. Now that he's trying to concentrate, he notices that he's also a bit hazy. Like a hangover, but not quite, foggy and exhausted. But he grins, shrugs his shoulders. “Start from the beginning?” 

With a sigh, Jason spins back towards the computer screens. “Amateur weapons dealers. We intercepted them at the harbor earlier tonight. You managed to put a tracker on their truck before they made us and it started hailing bullets. Now we're, well, tracking them.” 

So they were in a fight. That might at last explain why he's so sore. A bit early, but hey, if it's been vigorous enough that happens, and weapons dealers, even those new to the business, don't usually joke around. And if yesterday's patrol had also been busy... Wait. He doesn't remember last night either. On second thought, he doesn't remember much of anything. He's trying to reach back, but all that comes to him is a blurry blank space and vague sense of dread. 

Dick makes to stand, but as soon as he's upright, putting all his weight on his feet, he sways. His head _is_ swimming, and he's feeling a bit nauseous. Maybe a concussion, then? But Jason would have said something. He might not know, though; it might be an older injury. He takes a step forward, intending to ask Jason for the way to the bathroom, so he can check himself in the mirror. Unbending fully, he opens his mouth, but the words get cut off by a sudden stab of agony originating from whatever injury happened to his lower back. The sensation is accompanied by a cacophony of sensory impressions, images, sounds, a chilling feeling that spreads through his whole body, like he hasn't been warm in hours, if not days. His mind lights up with sudden, brief flashes of awful, intense, _wild_ fear. 

“Jay,” he slurs, and hears more than sees other's desk chair roll back. Next thing he knows Jason's got him by the arm, grabbing his aching wrist and – 

_– he's on the floor, legs folded underneath himself, arms chained over his head. Cold air drifts over his body, and he notices that he's freezing. The ground beneath him is bare and icy, and he's only wearing a dress shirt, nothing else. He tries to get his legs sorted right so he can try and rise to his feet, but here's that sharp pain radiating from his lower back, jolting up his spine with every beat of his pulse, and it overshadows everything else, making him gasp. And somehow he remembers that's bad; noise means he's drawing attention to himself, and it can't happen again, he can't –_

He can't deal with Jason so close, can't deal with the proximity, and roughly shakes off his hold. 

“Let go,” he nearly shouts, his own voice sounding panicky and too loud in his ears. “I'm fine, just, please. Let me go. Get back.” 

Jason's grip around his wrist loosens and disappears, his hand hovering over Dick's arm instead. But he doesn't try and touch him again, and something about just how swift the reaction is, like he's anticipated the demand, makes Dick pause. The thought floats away from him before he manages to examine it, however, and leaves nothing but deep confusion in its wake. He swallows, and nearly gags, only just now noticing a bitter taste in his mouth that reminds him vaguely of herbal tea. 

“Suit yourself,” Jason says, toneless, stepping away and showing Dick his back. He points at a blinking dot on one of the computer screens. “They're leaving the city. I don't think it's smart to attack them again while they're on the move, so let’s wait and figure out a plan when we have a better idea where they might be headed?” 

Dick nods, still reluctant to admit that he'd be in no condition to fight anyone's kitten right now anyway, let alone a gang of arms dealers that already dealt them one beating. He reaches up to gingerly touch his own head, feeling for bumps or traces of blood after all, but finds neither. Whatever's got him so out of it, it's not a head wound, and he's had enough concussions be relatively certain it's not that either. The sluggish feeling would have him suspecting some sort of drug, but that makes no sense. Couldn't have been dispersed in the kind of fight they must have had, and also, Jason would likely be affected as well. 

_None_ of this makes sense, and it would all be so much easier if he could _remember_ the said fight. 

For the moment, Dick joins Jason in following the dot move on the screen. They're on the highway now, heading south. Metropolis would be a fair guess, but that's all it would be; any number of directions they could take between there and Gotham. For the moment, they really can't do much else than sit around and watch the computer do their work for them. And since he's basically ruled out being concussed, Dick comes to the conclusion that the waiting time is best used by lying down and getting some sleep. Maybe he'll feel better afterwards. He's probably just exhausted. Sleep deprivation does you dirty, if it gets severe enough. 

“While we wait,” he announces, and then points at the ratty couch in the corner that looks like it's older than either of them. “I'll be taking a nap.”

He sits, carefully, and lies down. Settling takes a while; at first he tries to get comfortable facing the wall, away from the lights of the screens that he can't block out entirely even with his eyes closed, but it makes him feel vulnerable and uneasy. He rolls onto his other side instead, watches Jason slouch in his chair, lazily pull up different screens to track and search. 

Falling asleep takes longer this way. 

 

*** 

 

_The meeting's been going on for more than an hour, and Dick's understood maybe half of the graphs and spreadsheets that Wayne Industry's marketing director drew up on the huge screen on the other end of the room. He glances towards Bruce; Dick's sure he checked out of the whole thing a while ago too, but he's better at hiding it. Sometimes Dick suspects that making them all attend business meetings like this in regular intervals isn't educational, but more a case of shared misery. Among all three of Bruce's actual and currently officially alive wards, Tim is the one only one who actually follows and likes these things. Damian has the advantage of being too young for anyone to expect active participation, and Jason is excused by being legally dead._

_Across the large table, one of the marketing assistants catches Dick's gaze and winks at him conspiratorially. Dick rolls his eyes in reply, smiling. He neither knows nor recognizes the guy, but hey, they're trapped together and Alfred raised him to be polite. That catches Bruce's attention, however, and gets him a side glance. Nothing seriously disapproving, more a reminder to act the part in public and okay, time to pay attention again or at least give it his best pretense._

_The meeting ends a little while later, and Dick doesn't give Bruce the opportunity to rope him into more business dealings; it's nearly five anyway and he's got plans for the rest of the day. He takes the elevator to the lobby and loosens his tie as soon as he's out of the building. Jason's already waiting for him outside, on his bike, just off the sidewalk. His face is concealed by a regular motorcycle helmet, out in public so close to a place where people might recognize him personally, but Dick has long since stopped needing that to pick him out of a crowd._

_“Had fun?” Jason asks, and Dick flips him off before he takes the proffered spare helmet and joins him, snaking his arms around Jason's torso._

_As he holds on, the busy street around them dissolves, and their positions change. Now someone's behind him, pressed to his back while Dick's on his knees on rough ground, so close that Dick can feel their breath against his shoulder. His legs are bound with rope that rubs over already roughened flesh with every shove. His hands are cuffed, and they also hurt; he remembers that he spent some time trying to get out of them, to no avail; they're solid and too tight, don't give at all, biting into his skin even when he keeps still. There's an arm wrapped around Dick's chest to hold him in place, too tight on fresh bruises, and it makes breathing difficult. Fingers are digging into Dick's naked hip, so tightly Dick's fairly certain he'll have those marks for a while –_

A hand on his shoulder has Dick startling awake, and he's ready to lash out on instinct alone before Jason's face slowly swims into focus. The last vestiges of the dream flicker up before Dick's eyes, merging with the sight in front of him like a double-exposed photo, somehow calling the assumption into question that it's okay, he's safe, Jason is safe, no need to be on the defense. He shudders, sits up and shakes his head to clear it, and accepts a mug full of hot, steaming coffee that Jason shoves at him. 

“They stopped,” Jason says, and he's looking at Dick a bit sideways. “Thought you might want to know.” 

Dick takes a long sip from his coffee; it's almost too hot, but the way it spreads through his body, washes away the images of the dream and the chill lingering in his bones, makes that worth it. “Where?” 

“Industrial park just outside Metropolis.” Jason licks his lips, a slightly nervous, uncomfortable gesture. His gaze feels intense, inquisitive, like something physical. Right now, it makes Dick's skin crawl. “Did you have a nightmare or something?” he asks, and Dick freezes. 

“I... yeah,” he says, shifting his weight, and the stab of pain that produces almost doesn't surprise him anymore. “I guess. How'd you know?” 

Jason makes a face that's best described as callous and shrugs. “You were tossing and turning. Mumbling stuff, too. Wanna tell me about it?” 

“I hardly remember anything,” Dick lies, and as if to prove him wrong, his mind conjures the sensations from before he woke back up. _Pressure. Bruising hold. I don't want this, I don't –_. The thought makes Dick's blood run cold all over again. He has to physically repress a shudder, but his hand is suddenly shaking violently. He catches himself before he drops the mug, but not in time to prevent some of the hot coffee from sloshing out and spilling over his leg. His suit saves him from burning himself with the liquid, but it's still soaked, wet and uncomfortable. 

Slowly, Jason's eyes wander downwards to the mess, then go wide. He licks his lips again, turns on the balls of his feet. “I'm getting a towel.” 

Dick waits for his return with increasing unease. The sense of wrongness keeps increasing by bounds and leaps, and he's... he's scared. He blames the dream, his subconscious playing odd pranks. It'll fade. He's with Jason, he's been here before, he’s safe. It was _just a dream_.

Upon his return, Jason kneels by the couch and leans over Dick, starts dabbing on his suit with the towel. There's not much use in it; the fabric works as armor and it's durable, but it's still _fabric_ , and it does stain. 

“Take it off and rinse it?” Jason suggests. “It hasn't dried yet, that might work.” 

They're talking about cleaning clothes while Dick's heart is beating in his throat, harder and harder, and it's all sort of surreal. He realizes with another barely repressed shudder that he desperately doesn't want to undress right now, here, with Jason, but there's no good reason to refuse. What is he supposed to say? _I don't want to get half-naked around you right now because I had a weird dream?_

And so he stands to kick off his boots and peel himself out of the lower half of his suit. He bends to pick it up, breathing through a fresh surge of pain, and it takes a few moments to register, the sight so out of place that it makes his head spin: there's rope burn, red and angry and pretty damn recent, around his ankles. His mind slows, reluctant to correlate what he sees with the knowledge that it's his body, his legs, and he should know how those marks got there. Have a reason to explain them away that doesn't involve that stupid dream. But he doesn't. He has no idea, and it frightens him deeply. 

His eyes flicker up, meeting Jason's, and the other's mouth curves into the cruel, thin smile. 

Dick's whole world comes to a screeching halt. 

His heart is hammering in his chest. Jason holds his eyes, like he’s drinking in every bit of the dawning realization that must be written all over Dick's face. But that can't be. It can't be real. This can't be happening. Dick is seeing things, imagining things. He shakes his head. Closes his eyes for a few seconds, but that makes it worse, makes the afterimage of Jason's face swim and contort in his mind. He blinks. 

“Oh,” Jason says after a moment. “Yeah, about that. I forgot to tell you we already had ourselves some fun. You don't remember?”

And for a second – 

_the room goes dark and dips his face into half-shadow, little else visible than the silhouette of a wicked, excited smile. Dick's head is yanked back and there's something being poured down his throat, herbal and bitter and so much so fast he's choking on it, gagging, some of the liquid coming back up. He tries to fight, straining in his restraints, tries desperately to get some leverage, but that face is still in front of him, smiling._

_“Stop fighting, golden boy,” Comes the command and Dick does, goes rigid on the spot. His body denies him control over his limbs and he sits, damp clothes already making the cold down here so much worse, making him tremble. He literally_ can't _put up a fight anymore when his dress slacks are removed, his underwear peeled down next –_

Right then and there, Dick's legs give. Shock renders him immobile, and a few seconds trickle by before he regains partial control of his body and manages to scoot back against the couch. The ground is so cold beneath his bare legs and it's familiar, it's so sickeningly familiar. “You don't mean that,” he says, stammers, whispers almost. “Quit it, this isn't funny.” 

“I don't hear anyone laughing,” Jason says, and hits him, flat palm against his cheek. 

The sting of it shocks Dick into freezing up yet again, momentarily, and damn this shouldn't affect him so much. He should be getting up, hitting back, but there's that sharp pain curling through up his spine again, and it serves to sear through his training and defenses. He's not stupid, he can put two and two together. He understands what that pain means, now, especially combined with the dream – not memories, _not memories_ – and the rope burns and _sitting on the cold ground in nothing but a dress shirt_. 

He just refuses to believe it. He desperately refuses to believe it. 

Meanwhile, Jason is still kneeling in front of him. He watches Dick silently, the grin replaced with a perfectly blank expression that looks almost unnatural. Extending his hand he leans in, trapping Dick's chin between forefinger and thumb. Keeps watching Dick's face until his intentions sink in, and then he leans in further. Jason's lips are dry against his, he doesn't even try to pry his mouth open – this isn't meant to be a kiss, it's a threat. Dick jerks away, violently. Drawing back, Jason's gaze sweeps over his face, again and again, almost like he's searching for something; an expression, a reaction. Fear, probably, or defeat, but Dick's not about to let him have that kind of triumph. 

He spits. It's a frantic and childish response, but it has the desired effect; Jason reels back further and rises to his feet, muttering curses. Dick uses the time he gains to inch away, try to make his body work as he intends, but he miscalculates just how out of it he is; he hasn't been on his feet for more than six long strides since this whole thing started and the speed, the suddenness of the movement, makes him lose his balance. His head swims, and he's swallowing bile, the taste bitter and acidic and mingling with the taste of coffee still on his tongue. When he regains his equilibrium, he's on his back, Jason standing over him, lowering himself back down into a crouch. 

The expression on his face remains, observant and with an eerie, single-minded focus on Dick's every reaction, every emotion that might flit across his face. He reaches down and pulls Dick's underwear off, too, in one go until it tangles around his knees, and Dick nearly cries out. It's less about pain; it's about the sensation of rough ground against his lower back, the cold air on his genitals, exposed to the gaze of another without his permission, and the sinking knowledge that it's going to happen _again_. 

Then there's a moment where neither of them moves. Dick's frozen harder than before, screaming at his limbs to move but yielding no results, and Jason just keeps gaping at him. If Dick didn't know better he'd say his body language is signaling hesitation – a predator, poised, but not yet striking. He's watching Dick's face, and Dick is staring back, which means he sees the exact moment when Jason pulls together his resolve. Finally his own body reacts, but it's too late; Jason moves to straddle his legs, reaching up to catch his wrists, and, after some maneuvering, manages to pin them in one hand, the unrelenting pressure making Dick gasp in pain. And yeah, he'd forgotten that: they're marred as well, having been rubbed bloody on a pair of handcuffs attached to a wall. 

“What do you see?” Jason asks. His voice sounds rough, too deep, out of breath. For a moment his eyes shine with what Dick can only parse as hope, and that makes even less sense than the question. 

He's gone mad. Years since he came back, since the pit, and they thought he was better. That he was past all that. But here they are; Jason has gone completely and utterly mad, and somewhere deep inside of him, underneath the fear and confusion, the realization makes Dick unspeakably sad. It's like losing him twice, having him again just long enough to get used to it, remember, start to trust him, let him back in. Or maybe they never really got him back at all; maybe this was always simmering underneath. 

But his melancholy doesn't last long, because when he shakes his head, spitting at Jason again by the way of an answer – albeit futilely because he's too far away – Jason holds up his free hand and wriggles his fingers. He lets Dick watch, lets the terror and apprehension built while brings them up to his mouth and wets the tips of two fingers with saliva, then slowly puts them between Dick's legs, brushing the pads of his digits over his balls. 

Dick bites his lips, hard and long enough to taste copper. Shock continues to keep him perfectly still while Jason cups his balls and rolls them in his palm, rubs at his perineum, moving inevitably further down. Bracing for fingers to penetrate, for another violation, Dick whips his head to the side and screws his eyes shut. 

But it doesn't happen; Jason removes his hand entirely instead and lets go of his wrists too. Before Dick can take advantage of that he's getting hauled into a sitting position and roughly propped against the couch, then with one hard, measured punch, it's lights out. 

 

*** 

 

He comes back to in a dark, cramped space, his arms and legs tied, although it's now dulled by fabric. He's dressed, but it's not his uniform. The clothes smell like someone else, too; they must be Jason's – jeans and a t-shirt, no underwear – and the scent of him is oddly, intimately familiar. It makes something inside of Dick ache and twist. Memories hover on the edge of his mind, emotions, but he's too exhausted, his thoughts too jumbled, to hold on to them. It feels like all this has been going on for _days_ and he's getting lost in his own head, only to find it a blank space. That makes the panic worse; he can't figure out what's going on, what's real and what isn't. 

No. _No._ Dwelling on that won't help him. He's been trained to preserver in tough situations. He's been trained to rely on himself and his skills, and not give up, even when that's so hard to do that it seems damn near impossible. First step, and one he can do, is figuring out where he is and planning escape strategies. He concentrates, and notices another smell, overshadowing Jason's scent: the faint odor of oil and metal and old dust, and steady vibrations and a rumbling noise – a car trunk. 

Dick's barely had that epiphany when the vibrations stop and the noises die after one last stir of the engine. 

“Look at that,” Jason says when he opens the trunk. “You're awake.” 

Dick reacts by turning his head up and spiting at him; his last working defense, it seems. Of course he doesn't even hit him this time either, misses his head entirely. Jason steps away and sighs, then hooks his arms under Dick's arm pits and knees and heaves him out. In his head, Dick is screaming for his limbs to move, obey him, let him strain out of the hold and get away, but all he manages is a slight struggle, barely more than the desperate flopping of a fish on dry land. 

He looks around instead, parsing his surrounding and cataloging everything he sees. It's early morning, the sun just on the horizon. Dick sees the tower in the distance and one of the bridges. The neighborhood isn't immediately familiar – even though he could swear he's been here before – but at least they haven't gotten far. He's still in Gotham. If he can make it out of here, get away, help won't be far. 

As if reading his mind, Jason's grip on him tightens. “Recognize anything?” 

And yeah, nope, Dick would rather swallow his own tongue than answer any of his questions. His body might have betrayed him, useless and shocked into inaction, but he can still choose whether or not he'll speak or stay silent. 

Their journey ends in a basement and it's so cliché Dick nearly groans despite himself. A naked night bulb on the ceiling, a dirty mattress on the bare ground, a single old chair: the interior for the murderer's lair in every cheap crime novel. He expects Jason to dump him on the mattress, finish what they started back in the safe house. 

Jason does dump him, none too gently, but it's not on the mattress. It's on the cold ground, in front of a bare stone wall. Now that this bit of sense memory has made an appearance, Dick recognizes the room as a whole. The mattress, sticky underneath him. The bare light bulb, blinding him and dipping the face in front of him into harsh shadows. Dick cranes his neck upward, breath getting stuck in his throat. He already knows what he'll see, has absolutely no doubt whatsoever. 

Dangling from a hook in the wall are a pair of handcuffs. He can even make out the dried blood that's still clinging to them. His blood. Sunlight glints off the metal when the light hits it just so, making it blink for fractions of a second at a time. 

He wants to throw up. He wants to scream. 

“Looks familiar?” Jason wants to know, the taunting in his voice absent. It’s a simple question that sounds tired, worn, and weary. 

Dick really doesn't care. 

Instead of giving Jason an answer one way or another, he glares. Considers spitting again, but frankly, he's getting bored of that. 

Jason glares back for a few seconds, then lets his eyes roam across the room in the calculating, assessing manner that Dick was also taught. It’s something he shouldn't need to do, assuming they were here before, that he _brought Dick here before_ , but Dick's long past trying to piece together what happened. He'll survive, and he'll get away, and then he'll start figuring out the sequence of events. 

Finally Jason's eyes settle on the wall behind them, on the cuffs, and Dick's heart seizes in his chest. _No._ Not that. His wrists start to ache that much harder again at the prospect of going back there, and his panic soars, making him scramble back on hands and knees. 

“Please,” he says, because it's the only thought left in his head, and he doesn't care that he's pleading, that he's begging. _”Please don't.”_

Of course that doesn't work. Jason takes hold of one of Dick's arms and bodily drags him the rest of the way to the wall. He snaps the cuffs back on, tight and unforgiving, and within blinks, the strain in Dick's arms from the unnatural position returns. The pain in his wrists flares. Jason stares at him. Dick meets his gaze; it's the only thing left for him to do, that silent _fuck you_ , a show of defiance he might not actually possess anymore. 

Jason swallows hard and then lowers himself onto his knees next to Dick. He presses in close and undoes the zipper on Dick's borrowed jeans, still maintaining constant eye contact. He shoves Dick's jeans down his legs without ceremony, and Dick doesn't even stop to wonder why he can't fight him off anymore. He stays there on the ground next to Dick for maybe another minute before he pushes himself up and stands. 

The grin he gives Dick then is another ghastly grimace, something that looks forced and out of place on his face. “Get comfortable. Remember. I'll be back in half an hour, and then we'll play.” 

Lacking any way to track the passage of time, Dick drifts. Past and present blend together, and after a little while he isn't even certain he ever left this place at all. Maybe getting out was the dream; maybe he's been in this bleak basement the whole time. He's cold and he hurts, everywhere at once. He's scared and ashamed. He doesn't bother trying to come up with an escape plan or a way to fight back; some small part of him suggests it might be better if he never got out of this goddamn basement at all. 

He barely lifts his head when he hears footsteps coming closer. His eyelids feel too heavy, threatening to fall shut on their own accord. Jason sits down next to him again, the fabric of his jeans scratchy against the bare skin of Dick's legs, and Dick flinches when he lifts the t-shirt out of the way, working a hand between Dick's legs. Staring straight ahead, not looking at Dick at all, he takes Dick's cock in his hand and starts squeezing and stroking in quick practiced motions. It doesn't take long until Dick's body commits another betrayal, reacting to the physical stimulation, and his cock fills up. He bites his lip, hard, opening up the split he'd inflicted on himself earlier, and writhes and wriggles until his whole body is singing with pain, all in an effort to counter the skilled manipulation by any means possible. The combined effect makes it worse; the resulting anguish mixes with his unwilling arousal, makes his stomach cramp painfully, makes him _sick_. Jason doesn't waver through any of it; he strokes and he pulls just so, maintaining a steady rhythm that's too much to ignore and not enough to get off. The scent and now the weight of him become more familiar the longer it lasts, and the sense-memory they bring stands in stark contrast to memories of this place, the horrors that already happened here and that are still floating through Dick's head, overwhelming but vague, not quite close enough to grasp. 

Leaning in further, their foreheads touching, Jason wraps his free hand around Dick's neck, forcing him to meet his eyes. His thumb massages Dick's airway, loosely, but insistent; not cutting off Dick's airflow yet, but the threat is there. “Look at me. Look me in the eye. Look at my fucking face and tell me what you see.” 

This time his voice sounds almost pleading, and that's what makes Dick obey, consciously, not another instance of his body turning on him. He squints, and he stares into Jason's eyes, really looking, really _seeing him_ and he nearly rears back when Jason's face morphs into the face of someone else. It's like a photo effect again, but this time in reverse, revealing the truth underneath the shock and terror and the assumptions that made _then_ and _now_ blend together. The face he sees now has a different shape, different haircut and color, also familiar but vaguely – like he passed him on the street and not from years of shared history. 

Jason's hand on him stills, then gets retracted altogether. With great care, he frees Dick and rearranges them until Dick's resting against his side, and Dick doesn't fight him, utterly exhausted, lost and confused. “You're remembering now, aren't you? Please tell me you remember.” 

“It wasn't you,” Dick says, his own voice small, and even to his own ears it sounds halfway like a question. 

“No, Dickie,” Jason replies, all but whispers it against Dick's temple. “It wasn't me.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

**FOUR MONTHS AGO**

“You know,” Jason says, lowering himself into a crouch next to where Dick's sitting on the edge of the roof, “if it weren't for the costumes, people would probably assume we're up here to flirt with death.”

Dick doesn't turn or glance up, but the tension in his shoulders eases visibly: of course he noticed a visitor in his hiding spot, caught the movement, someone else's presence. And something in Jason unclenches, reassured at the fact that recognizing him as said visitor causes Dick to relax, again, like he would have when they were younger.

“Aren't we, though?” he asks. “Flirting with death?”

“Nah.” Jason leans forward, bracing himself with one hand on the concrete. “I'm not in the habit of chasing down my exes.”

Finally, Dick shifts to look at him. He does so, Jason presumes, so the rather epic eye roll he's directing at him doesn't fly past its audience. “Funny.” Then his gaze flits down to Jason's hand, at his increasingly precarious perch, and he sighs. “Sit down, you're making me nervous.”

Just for the sake of being petulant, Jason actually leans forward a little further at first, grinning a challenge at Dick, but then decides that's immature and petty and, hell, he's here to ask a favor. He has nothing to gain in riling Dick up, as fun a pastime as it may be. He shifts and folds his legs underneath himself, then holds up his hands, palms outward. “Better?”

Dick just rolls his eyes some more.

For a few moments, they sit beside each other in silence, watching the sun go up over Gotham's busy skyline. The red lights from an ambulance meets the orange and yellow of the morning sky as Jason watches, then fade as it speeds out of sight. A car alarm is wailing somewhere and the obnoxious heavy beats from another car driving past carry even this high. The city slows down a little in the early hours of the morning, but it's never quiet.

Dick leans back on his hands, lets his legs swing against the wall. “What are you doing here, Jay?”

“I need a second opinion on a certain... problem.” Jason admits.

“And you're coming to me?” Dick wants to know, hefting an eyebrow.

“Well, I'm obviously not going to Bats,” Jason starts. “And apart from him you're the oldest and the one with the most experience. Plus, we've worked together before, when I was, you know, not dead.”

The skeptical expression on Dick's face remains firmly in place. “Weren't those all the same reasons why you wanted to kill me really badly a little less than a year ago?” His gaze grows a bit more piercing, attentive, like he's trying to assess Jason's reaction. Jason schools his own features into indifference. It's not too hard. He doesn't expect them to trust him, not yet, not fully. He doesn't have the energy to be disappointed by that each and every time. “Try again. Why me?”

So, because his answer was genuine – whether Dick believes that or not – and because he doesn't have any lies to tell today, Jason tries another truth. “Out of all of us, you have by far the nicest ass. I greatly enjoy watching it swing through the air in front of me.”

Dick's eyes widen at that, but if Jason knows him at all it's not because he's scandalized. No, if he had to bet, Jason might say the reaction that flickers over his face almost looks like heat, an interest returned. Only goes to show that he can't actually know him that well. Everyone's perfect original Robin would surely know better than touching his gone-dead-then-mad successor.

Although Jason's conviction on the matter topples slightly when Dick cracks a grin, and it's a bit lopsided, teasing.

“In that case,” he says, shifting so he faces Jason more directly, and Jason's left wondering if he imagines the slow slide of Dick's gaze up and down his body before it resettles on his face. “What's the problem?”

 

***

 

The problem, as it stands, is that Jason hates undercover work as much as he sucks at it – there's only a certain level of suave he can achieve before his distaste for the whole charade becomes apparent – and that misery loves company. He traced a local drug ring, small but productive, to a nightclub in the city. He needs further confirmation that the owner's in on it, lest he rain destruction on an innocent local business. Dick frowns his way through the explanation – for someone who spends his nights roaming the streets as a costumed vigilante, he's rather adamant about scrunching his nose over non-police-mandated justice – but he does agree to come along the following night.

Once the details have been discussed, Dick shoots out a line, throwing Jason a mischievous smile over his shoulder before he jumps, and then he's cutting through the air.

And, yeah. Nothing imagined or ambiguous about _that_. Jason postpones heading off in the opposite direction for a second or three. He uses that time to try and expunge an onslaught of remembered teenage wet dreams that all featured that very same smile and the line of Dick's body when it pulls taut before he bounces into the night.

 

***

 

About an hour before their agreed-upon meeting at the club, Jason receives a text. _Pick me up at mine_ , it simply says. No explanation, no reason, not even an emoticon. Jason figures Dick's the one doing him a favor, so he can't really turn that down, and texts back an _okay_.

When he arrives, Dick is as closed to being dressed to the nines as he'll ever get outside of Wayne business events. Which really isn't _that_ close, and, in this case, means slightly tighter than usual jeans and a dark blue dress shirt with the first two buttons open. He's still barefoot, and pads ahead of Jason into the apartment. It's the first time Jason's been to this place – Dick's a bit restless, he moves quite frequently – but not the first time he's visited Dick at home, so he's not too surprised by the vaguely messy state of it. Not a complete mess, not dirty, but sloppy. In the kitchen there’s three days’ worth of dishes in the sink. There are a few clusters of clothes strewn around on the living room floor, letters and printouts all over the coffee table, some bearing coffee stains. That kind of thing. Jason does his best not to make a face as he parkours his way after Dick, not entirely sure why he's being led into the apartment when he's just supposed to pick him up.

Dick stops seemingly at random and eyes him. There's the slightest hint of a grin on his face, a mirror of the expression from last night, before he took off, coupled with a slight edge of tension in way he holds himself. Not much of the latter though; he seems to be rather confident that this whole situation is going to go his way. Jason's heart exiles itself to his throat. It's a preemptive measure, but hey, he's been trained to think ahead and it's not every day your teenage wet dream appears to shift into tangible reality.

“So that line this morning, about how you like to watch me…” Dick says, gaze flickering up and capturing Jason's. “You weren't joking, were you?”

“Nope,” admits Jason, experimentally. He's getting used to the idea that this might be leading to places he never expected to end up, and hell, he's not the type to tiptoe around.

Dick's stance relaxes, and he gives in to the grin he's been hedging. “You ready to back that up?”

Just then and there, Jason understands why they Dick led them to this spot in the room; they're within easy reach of a wall, close to a door to another room. And since the kitchen isn't closed off and the bathroom door is marked as such, he's reasonably sure that's the bedroom. _Fuck._ Had he known that a lewd comment, half-joking and mostly made to be contrary, would yield such interesting results, he'd have made it one hell of a lot sooner.

He grins back. “Hell yeah.”

Without hesitation, Dick reaches for his hand and pulls him towards aforementioned wall, uses his other hand to pull him down for a kiss, roughly, straightforward. Jason struggles to catch up, mentally more than physically; the fact that it's happening at all, the fact that Dick's initiating and pushing, both come out of the left field. The confidence is less of a surprise, but Jason would never have expected him to be this direct and unashamed. Then again, Dick always did know what he wanted. Maybe it shouldn't be that much of a shock that he wouldn't have any compunctions about going after this, either. And maybe Jason should pay him back in kind.

Lips still sealed together, Jason turns them so that Dick's the one backed against the wall and works one hand underneath Dick's shirt, running his fingers over smooth muscle, which ripples when Dick inhales at the touch. He reaches between them, and when Jason blinks, glancing down, he sees him unbuttoning his shirt, and Jason abandons his exploration in favor of sliding the fabric off his shoulders. Impatience crawls through his belly, and he goes to work on Dick's jeans next, popping the button open and pulling his zipper down.

And while kissing is nice, kissing is _great_ and Dick's quite good at it, there's a new idea on Jason's mind now. He needs to _see_. He needs to _taste_. Dick smiles against his mouth when Jason tugs at his jeans, helpfully wriggles so he can pull them down to mid-thigh, taking his briefs with them.

There's a moment of near-panic when Jason draws back, breaking the kiss, and for a second he's convinced that the bubble will pop, that it's all been a dream or a hallucination and that he'll find himself alone, elsewhere, aching for something he can't have like he did so many years ago. He waits that out; it helps that he's still less than a hand’s width from Dick's face, his open mouth, sharing his air. Then he meets that stupid, childish fear like he meets any other: head-on and with a vengeance.

He wraps a hand around Dick, finding him already hard, and gives him a few sharp tugs, eliciting a startled gasp. Then he sinks to his knees.

Teasing and finesse couldn't be less of a concern, all he feels is _need_ , raw and heady. He takes Dick into his mouth almost in one go, down to the root, hollows his cheeks and sucks. Dick buckles against the wall, one hand coming to rest on Jason's head, stroking at first, then abandoning all pretense and grabbing a fistful of his hair. His grip isn't quite painful, but it is firm, steering the rhythm and angle of Jason's head as it bobs up and down, and Jason can hardly hear the noises he makes, deep punched-out pants and low moans, over the blood rushing in his own ears.

With some delay Jason remembers that touching is also still in the cards. One hand wanders to the base of Dick's cock, pinching, because he's not going to let Dick finish until he's done here, had his fill. The other roams further, brushes over Dick's balls, rolling them in his palm, rubs up his perineum.

That gets Dick alert; he pushes into the touch, groans and rolls his hips, insistent, and it takes Jason embarrassingly long to catch his meaning. Once he does, he extends a hand upwards, blindly, wriggles his fingers until Dick does some catching on of his own and bends down to lick them. Jason doesn't much bother with elegance in fingering him either; works one digit into him, then two, and feels for his prostate until the cadence of Dick's moans changes, takes on an urgent, needy edge. That's how he gets him off the first time; deep-throating, two fingers inside him and mercilessly rubbing where it counts. He swallows almost by accident, not quite ready to pull off until it's indeed over and Dick's trying to twist away, the hand in Jason's hair hauling him backwards.

He looks up then, licking his lips. Stays on his knees a little longer, staring at Dick's face: eyes still closed, expression unguarded and loose with pleasure. Watches as he comes back to himself, blinking and still breathing heavily, his chest heaving with it. His _bare_ chest, and the sight isn't a complete novelty – Dick wears a skintight suit and there's been enough field first aid in the past that some naked skin has been glimpsed – but he's still just so goddamn gorgeous.

“Hey, come on, quit staring, it's not like you haven't seen me in various states of undress before,” Dick points out as if he's read his mind.

“True,” Jason concedes, “but the hard-on kinda puts it into focus.”

That earns him an eye roll and a badly repressed smirk, the latter of which he returns full throttle. But Dick does have a point; there's so much better things to do here than just looking. Jason puts his hands on Dick's hips, slowly drawing them up along his torso, while he rises to his feet for another thorough, filthy kiss. Meanwhile, Dick steps out of his jeans and underwear, and, when he seems fed up with being groped, nods towards the closed door near them. The bedroom, presumably.

That theory is conformed when Dick pushes the door open and switches the lights on. The interior is spartan, pragmatic, a king size bed with a bedside table at one side, a large wardrobe, and no decoration save for a trio of framed prints that look like they've been housewarming gifts rather than something Dick would chose for himself. The bed is unmade, and Dick's steadily pulling him towards it, sitting down on the edge and tugging Jason between his legs. And oh, yes. Dick goes to undo his jeans and peel them down, and it occurs to Jason that this would be even more fun if they were _both_ naked. He sheds jacket and shirt, throws them onto the ground without thought – not like it'd make much of a difference with the state of the apartment as a whole – and lets Dick pull his jeans and briefs the rest of the way down.

Dick kisses a line up his inner thigh, his pelvic bone, and then hauls him down onto the bed, toppling them both. They scoot further up the mattress together in an uncoordinated tangle of limbs, until Dick's back is against the headboard, his legs fallen wide, cock filling up again, eyes dark and hungry.

And, hey, Jason doesn't have much of a preference when it comes to penetration – fucking, getting fucked, it all gets him there in the end – but that's not an invitation he could ever turn down.

He kneels between Dick's legs and points at the bedside table. “Please tell me you planned ahead. Cause, to tell you the truth, I don't have anything on me.”

Dick leans over and makes a slow show of pulling the middle drawer open, produces a pack of condoms and half-full bottle of lube and throws them both in Jason's general direction.

Wasting no time on a complaint about rude bedside manner, Jason rips open a condom wrapper, gets himself all the way back to interested with a few rough strokes, rolls one on, and pours lube into the palm of his hand, letting it warm to something approaching body temperature for a moment. He holds Dick's eyes as he slides two fingers into him, marginally slower this time, concentrating on getting him open rather than getting him off.

He's just worked in a third finger when Dick reaches for his wrist. “That's enough. Just... I want you in me.”

Also not something Jason needs to be told twice. He lines up and teases, just barely breaching the rim, then grabs hold of Dick's left ankle, hikes his leg over his shoulder, and fucks into him in one single, slow push.

Dick's eyes fall closed, face scrunching up with effort, but he doesn't complain; not when Jason stills, letting him adjust, and not when he starts to move. No, he meets his thrusts, arches into them, both hands fisting the sheets. Rolls his hips in silent demand and curses when Jason complies, obscenities falling from his lips between loud moans and, over and over again, Jason's name.

And goddammit, but Jason thought that this, if it was ever going to happen, would be different. That it'd be more like sullying something precious. That he'd have to prod, push, convince. Beg, maybe. He wouldn't have imagined Dick in the driver's seat for this, start to finish, and all he can do is fall in line and keep pace.

He leans forward, burying himself even deeper, but otherwise content to fuck Dick at the rhythm he wants, Dick's hands now on his hips to direct angle as well as speed. Jason kisses him to swallow the words from his mouth, every obscene sound, not caring that it makes it a little harder to breathe for both of them.

When he feels orgasm rushing down on him, he sits back up and takes Dick in his hand, thumb rubbing over the head, smearing the precome collected there, and starts pumping him in sync with his thrusts. Dick comes first, but not by much; Jason's right behind him.

A little later, once Jason's run off to the bathroom, cleaned himself up and returned with a wash cloth for Dick to do the same, they both lie on the bed, on their sides, fingers of one hand entwined but not otherwise touching.

“Okay,” Jason says into the silence, because it’s blabbing out whatever bullshit pops into his head on short notice or jumping off the bed and running away, and he doesn’t _want_ to run. “Brutal honesty hour. Was that a spontaneous idea, or could we have been doing this all the way through Robin-hood and my brief taste of college?”

Dick’s eye-roll-with-a-smile is positively disarming and a hundred percent Golden Boy Grayson. For a moment Jason gets thrown all over again, has a hard time believing that this is the same guy who, a mere ten minutes ago, directed him through a fuck to make sure it’s exactly the way he wants. Filthy, gorgeous, a little selfish. And yeah, okay. Maybe it _is_ in character.

“I wouldn’t have touched you when you were younger,” Dick says, and he doesn’t elaborate, cuts Jason off with a kiss when he attempts to ask. But that’s fine. What-ifs and hypothetical don’t matter anyway. He deepens the kiss, and absolutely does not whine when Dick breaks it, smirking, and hops off the bed to get dressed.

 

***

 

They do check on the nightclub, albeit much later than planned. Jason learns two things that night: one, the owner doesn't have anything to do with the drug trade, and two, the sight of Dick in dress pants and a button-up and illuminated by strobe lights is only outdone by the muffled noises he makes while Jason has him against the ugly, graffiti-covered wall of a bathroom stall, his legs wrapped around Jason's torso, biting his lower lip to keep in a moan as Jason bottoms out inside him.

 

***

 

For a week or so after that, no communication happens between them. Dick doesn't contact him and Jason makes no attempt of his own – half out of stubbornness and pride, half because he's rather certain he'd be turned down. Rejection tends to find Jason just fine by itself. No need to run after it.

The next time they meet, it's in the throes of an invasion of alien lizards in Star City. The shit that passes for normal in their lives, seriously. Jason wasn't summoned by the family; he'd been tugged along by Roy and Kori. Even so, everyone is showing up, Bats and entourage included, and it's not long until Jason finds himself distracted by glimpses of Dick in costume, watching his body move on zip lines and perform insane jumps, and it's all the more spellbinding now that he knows how that body looks in the nude, has seen the flex of muscles under skin, the beautiful curve of his erect –

No. Jason is a professional, or as close as one comes to that in this line of work. He's not going to catch an alien lizard claw to the gut because he'd been preoccupied recalling what his adopted older brother looks like bent in half and approaching an orgasm. That is not going to happen. He blinks the thought away and does what he came here for: shoots and slices into invading creatures until he's cleared a path through them, and then shoots and slices some more.

In the aftermath, Dick finds him.

Jason has retreated to a back alley, cleaning the remains of said creatures off his gun while the shinier part of their posse smiles for the news cameras and waves at returning citizens. That's not where the Red Hood belongs; that's nothing Jason ever really held an interest in. Nor did Dick, to his credit, or Bats. The latter has probably gathered his other ducklings already and put them on a Wayne jet back to Gotham.

Dick wanders into the alley like a cat, dancing on the balls of his feet and an unwavering stare leveled at his prey, the unfortunate rodent soon to be caught between his paws.

“Look who came out to save the world today,” he says, with a smile that can't quite decide between pride and mockery.

“Oh Dickie,” Jason sing-songs, eyeing Dick intently whilst trying to ignore the fact that the blood in his lower abdomen already wants to gather into his cock. It's a testament to his training and willpower that it _doesn't_ , yet. “Don't feed into Queen's delusions, Star City is hardly the navel of the world.”

Dick chuckles a little and comes closer, sauntering to Jason's side like nothing changed. Like they haven't had each other naked and panting. Like remembering that leaves him wholly unaffected.

But two can play that game. Jason can do a poker face, on the rare occasion that he deems it necessary. Mostly he just doesn't care. He leans against the nearest dirty wall in a show of nonchalance, continues wiping his knife. If Dick thinks he's going to hand him an opening, just like that, he's mistaken. He's got anything to say? Great, then he can just come out with it.

Dick wanders over to stand beside him, close enough that their shoulders brush. And he doesn't _say_ anything. He reaches out and puts his hand on Jason's hip, then slowly, casual as they come, slides it further down, until he's palming Jason's crotch.

“So how're you doing?” Jason inquires, tipping his hand early after all, because there's poker and then there's patience, and the latter has never been one of his strong suits. Bluntness, however, has traditionally served him well in the past. Well. Sometimes. Maybe. It's not like he's kept a running record on that. He thrusts his hips forward, pushing his growing hard-on into Dick's hand. “I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume crippling guilt hasn't settled in yet? Or came and left? Because, in that case, I'd really like to do it again. A lot. Regularly, if you're up for that.”

“Hmm,” is all Dick says before he turns, stepping between Jason's legs to kiss him, and, okay, Jason is just going to go ahead and assume it's meant to be a _yes_.

 

 

 

**SIX WEEKS AGO**

That's how it goes, for a little while. The sex is great, as can be expected for two people as bendy and flexible as them, and there's not much more to it; post-fight adrenaline rushes and 2 AM booty calls, and it's fun. It's wonderful. Easy and uncomplicated and hot as hell, no posing or pretending.

Which means, when Dick texts him the magic words _wanna come over_ on a Friday evening after a rather unspectacular week, by Gotham standards, Jason showers and grabs some condoms from the bedside drawer – just in case there's a drought at Casa Grayson – and heads over with the usual expectations.

He's met by Dick in sweatpants and a varsity t-shirt, and his left arm in a cast. There's doodles on it – crudely drawn pet animals Jason assumes are from Damian, stupid jokes in Tim's chicken scratch, and hearts and kissy lips he suspects are from Steph – and Dick smiles sheepishly when Jason's gaze wanders to the arm, then back up to meet his eyes.

“Clean break, it'll heal in no time,” Dick explains. “Couple cracked rips too. Slipped on the rope, in the rain. Stupid mistake.”

And Jason stays silent. Because he may have been raised on the streets, but even he has enough tact to not just ask what he's doing here, then, if sex is out of the picture and that's all they've been doing so far. He lets Dick lead him to the couch, the TV showing a newscast on mute, and sits, waiting for an explanation.

“I just thought...” Dick starts, carefully lowering himself down next to him. He trails off, leans forward with a pained grimace, picks up a takeout menu from under the table and waves it around. “You up for keeping me company with our clothes on, for a change?”

And there he is, staring at Jason, blinking a little more quickly than usual, a nervous tell. Making an offer, again, a different one, and this time he seems much less sure about the answer.

It takes Jason a moment to figure out that answer; not because he doesn't want to, or because he's not interested, doesn't care. He is. He does. But smudging their line in the sand makes this dangerous. It means feelings and the potential for more. It means someone might get hurt, if it doesn't work out.

“Okay, you know what,” Dick says into the silence, making to stand, “this was stupid. You should go – “

“No,” Jason interrupts him, putting a hand on his thigh to halt him. “I mean, yes. I'd like to stay. Takeout sounds great, and maybe we'll find a rerun of something worthwhile with a bit of channel surfing.”

For emphasis, he sneaks his hand underneath the hem of Dick's t-shirt, resting it on the small of his back. Dick relaxes under the touch, shifts and leans backward. Closes his eyes when Jason draws small circles on his skin, and lets out a sigh that sounds like relief and contentment.

This is going to get dangerous alright, Jason's rather sure. But as he sits there, watching old MASH episodes both of them have already seen any number of times while Dick's head slowly slips onto his shoulder, he decides that, maybe, in the meantime, it's gonna be worth the inevitable fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay kids, I got the next two chapters done and beta'd and edited as well, and you'll get them quickly, because I am physically incapable of sitting on something that's ready to go for too long, ooops. After that, updates might get slower. But I have as much of an outline as I ever do, basically all the way through the end, so the chances of finishing this in a somewhat timely fashion are solid.
> 
> Also, I solemnly swear this will start making actual sense soon. :P


	3. Chapter 3

 

**FIVE DAYS AGO**

Jason wakes to an empty bed, the sheets beside him rugged and still warm but their occupant gone. He calls Dick's name on a yawn and stretches out, noting with no small amount of almost giddy satisfaction that he's pleasantly sore in all the right places.

“Still here,” comes Dick's reply from somewhere by the couch in the main room. “You're the runner. I have manners.”

And there it is, the choice between staying in bed – where it's warm and comfortable and still smells like their fucking – and getting up so he can snark back properly without having to raise his voice. He groans, displeased, but there's something depressing about abandoned sheets and so he sits up, swings his legs out of bed, and pulls a fresh pair of sweatpants from a drawer.

“I haven't done that in weeks,” he argues as he walks from one room to the other, making it sound a little whiny on purpose.

Dick snorts, but it somehow sounds fond, not mocking. “It's almost like you're settling down.”

He doesn't turn, keeps his eyes trained on the wall. If this were his own place, Jason's sure, he'd be staring out the window, but Jason's safe houses usually don't have windows by design – it would make them less safe, and also, _house_ is a rather loose term for them anyway – so all Dick has to stare at instead is a wilted and yellowed MOMA poster. Jason did not put that there. He likes it, though. And the sight right in front of it is no less artful. Dick, much less concerned with modesty than Jason is, has opted against putting on any clothes. The harsh overhead lights make his skin look brighter than it actually is where they hit, darker where they don't, and make him seem like something from the pages of an old noir comic.

Its beauty aside, the whole scene sends a nervous jolt down Jason's spine. He stops a few feet away from Dick and crosses his arms. “Isn't it a little late for second thoughts?"

“I wish you'd stop thinking of yourself as a bad habit I'm eventually going to shake,” Dick says, and now he does swivel around on his heels.

Jason can't help his eyes raking over Dick's body, swallowing hard. He feels himself stirring and doesn't quite know what to long for; he can never decide what's better, being inside Dick while he pushes back, wriggles and moans, or watching his eyes glaze over when Jason fucks himself on him, when he's so lost in sensation that he forgets to move or thrust, leaving Jason in sole charge of both their pleasure.

A wolfish grin spreads on Dick's face, his eyes falling down to Jason's crotch. “Really? You can't withstand me standing in front of you naked for two minutes?” He tuts. “Jay, I gotta say, you're really good for my ego.”

“Yeah, as if you need any help with _that_ ,” says Jason, marching up to him and pushing, backing him up against that stupid poster.

Dick yields, tilts his head up so they can kiss, and only then takes hold of Jason's shoulders with both hands and flips them. He keeps one hand pressed just below Jason's collarbone, pinning him although he needn't have, it's not like Jason has any intentions to escape, and dips the other below the waistband of Jason's sweatpants. Jason moans when Dick brushes past is cock, and throws his head back against the wall when he ventures further, easily slipping two fingers into him at once.

“I haven't showered yet,” Jason protests. “I'm still gross and sticky.”

“Even better,” Dick says, leaning in to nibble at his earlobe. “Still open and ready, too.”

He doesn't seem to consider _doing_ anything about that a pressing concern, however, because he simply continues fingering Jason, deep and none too gently, all the while rutting against Jason's hip like an undisciplined teenager.

That's when Jason's cell phone goes off, cheerfully blasting the customized ring tone that means Roy's either sending out a distress call or just an invitation for pizza and a beer. And since Jason can never know which is which, both equally likely, and possesses some crumbs of self-control, he breaks the kiss and gently pushes at Dick's stomach.

Dick steps away. “Something important?”

“It better be,” Jason grumbles as he retrieves his phone. “Or I'll gift him with a black eye and a headache the next time I'll see him.”

He plops down sideways on the couch as he swipes to take the call, and while he listens to a long-winded and unnecessarily complicated explanation about Kori and a diplomatic event on a spaceship gone violently pear-shaped, Dick settles in behind him, both arms wrung around his middle.

Dick is still naked, still hard where he's pressed against the small of Jason's back, and he smells like sex and he carries Jason's own scent on his skin and Jason wants him so much it hurts. He wants _this_ so much it's a constant ache in his chest.

But none of that is an excuse to abandon a friend in need, and so Jason promises to be there as quickly as possible, already making plans to snatch a plane from the nearest secret and shadowy government agency.

He ends the call and turns around to kiss Dick one more time, deep and sloppy. They part, and he drinks in the way Dick's pretty, pretty face looks with arousal reddening his cheeks and his pupils blown so much they're almost all black.

“I'll be back in a day or two,” he promises.

“Just go,” Dick says, rolling his eyes. “No matter what you might like to imagine, I don't spend all my free time pining whenever you're not around.”

Jason just grins, and kisses him again. It's another five minutes before he manages to detach himself, ten more to get dressed and gather his suit and mask. Meanwhile, Dick hasn't dressed beyond boxers and a t-shirt, and Jason leaves him with a video game controller in his lap, a soda can on the wobbly coffee table beside him, and the small but blooming conviction that he'll get to come home to this.

 

 

 

**TWO DAYS AGO**

There's layers of alien goo caked on his jacket and he can still smell whatever passes for gasoline in their engines and he hasn't slept in days, but that doesn't matter. His first stop back in Gotham is still Dick's apartment, before stopping by his own safe house or attending to any business that may have come up while he was away. He doesn't expect much from the visit; saying hello, checking in, maybe stealing a kiss. He's too exhausted for much else, anyway.

He lets himself in by previous agreement – no key, though honestly, it's not like _that_ would stop either of them – and finds the apartment dark and seemingly abandoned. He's just a bit disappointed, although given the time of night, it's not entirely unexpected. Sunrise is only a couple hours away, and Dick will show up eventually. He'll stay here and wait, watch some TV, curl up on the couch –

“Jason?”

The voice is unmistakably Dick's, and Jason whips around, trying to locate him in the dark, wondering why he opted against turning on the overhead lights. Unease crawls up his spine, but he tries not to give into it quite yet.

“Hey Dickiebird,” he says, keeping the tone conversational, while he walks slowly over to the wall and feels for the light switch. “You'll never guess how Roy managed to take out that alien spaceship. I like the guy, I really do, but he's batshit.”

“That's hardly news,” Dick says, and it sounds empty, toneless, like a badly rehearsed line in a play.

Jason finds the switch and turns the light on, deciding to abandon the banter. Dick is sitting on his couch, legs drawn up to his chest and arms curled around them. He's wearing a dress shirt and slacks, both dirty. His feet are bare, shoes lying on the floor in front of him. His jaw is bruised, and he's got a shiner underneath one eye. Discounting the outfit, none of that would be new or unusual. What gets Jason is the expression on his face. He looks... stunned, for lack of a better word, eyes staring in the middle distance, unseeing, mouth in a thin line, jaw working constantly.

With three long strides, Jason's over by the couch, kneeling on the ground in front of him. “What's wrong? What happened? Are you hurt?”

He doesn't get an answer, so Jason puts a hand on his thigh and squeezes, lightly, to draw him out of his stupor. Dick doesn't flinch, exactly, but he tenses so quickly and so suddenly, muscles locking up underneath Jason's touch and his breathing gone erratic, that Jason retracts his hand in alarm anyway.

“Dick, hey,” he tries again, searching for his gaze. “You need to tell me what's wrong with you.”

It feels like hours, days maybe, but eventually Dick turns his head, glancing down to meet Jason's eyes. He inhales, the force of it shuddering through his whole body, then lets the air out in a slow, controlled exhale. “Can you.... would you get in the shower with me? You don't have to actually join me, but, if you could stay in the room? Just to make sure.”

He doesn't need to explain beyond that; Jason gets it. Making sure he's safe while he's naked and vulnerable. It does nothing to dissuade the sneaking suspicion that's begun to take residence in the back of Jason's head. A reaction like this wouldn't come from a beating, or a simple battle, no matter how taxing. They're used to that and they learned to deal with physical injury, no matter how unpleasant. Besides, Dick doesn't _seem_ physically hurt, at least not badly. There's something else going on, and Jason does his best not to jump to conclusions.

“Sure,” he says, and offers Dick a small smile. He's not too surprised that it isn't returned.

He waits until Dick unfolds himself and gets off the couch, his movements stiff and slow, and lets him walk ahead to the bathroom. Once they're both inside, Jason makes a point of locking the door and positions himself squarely in front of it.

That, finally, earns him a fleeting, miniscule upturn of Dick's lips. “I appreciate the gesture, but I think I'm gonna need you over here.”

He accentuates that with a wave of his hand, and Jason does as he's asked and goes to stand a few inches away from Dick, who's on the mat in front of the shower.

Dick undoes the buttons on the dress shirt and sheds it, revealing a few angry lacerations on his wrists and couple more bruises on his torso, but no actual injuries, which floods Jason with relief but also fuels his unease. Then he curls a hand around Jason's shoulder for support while he gingerly peels out of his slacks and boxers with the other, wincing at the movement, and for a few endless seconds Jason's heart all but stops.

He's got rope burn around his ankles, and when he bends to step out of the bundled up clothes and kick them aside, Jason spots a mess of varying substances on the back of his thighs, crusted and dried. Blood, among other things; rivulets mixed in with the rest, having run down the same paths sweat or urine would travel. The implication, the visible proof, destroys any hope Jason still held that he might have hooked onto the wrong assumptions.

He has to avert his gaze, and his hand curls into fists by his side. The urge to punch something becomes unbearable for a few seconds; it takes all his self-control to breathe through it and turn his attention back to Dick.

And Dick's the one smiling at him how, although it's more of a sad imitation. It looks like a mask, an old figurine meant to spook anyone who lays eyes on it. “Figured it out now, huh?”

“Who – “ Jason starts, but Dick shakes his head.

“We'll talk later,” he says. “Let's just get this done. I think I have a spare comb in the cabinet, can you get it for me? A couple cotton swabs, too.”

That's about the last request Jason expected, and re-routing his thoughts to something so mundane takes some effort. Buying time to cover that up, he asks, “Why?”

Dick sighs at him, and it reminds Jason of the early days, when he'd still been a new Robin and Dick had still been pissed with Bruce and every mistake Jason made in training left him aggravated. That seems like forever ago, now. “Pubic hair. He used condoms so I don't think we'll get anything there. But... hair, maybe. And I scratched him on the first day, so we can try that too. For analysis. See if he's in the system.”

Jason almost misses the plural on _condoms_. He sucks in a breath between his teeth and turns away to root through the mirrored bathroom cabinet. It doesn't take him long to find at least three different combs, all new and still wearing a price tag, something that's hilariously _Dick_ and, right now, nearly break's Jason's heart. Without waiting for another instruction, he digs around for the first aid kit – he knows where that is by now – and disinfects one of them, then rinses and dries it, before he offers it to Dick. Then he hands him a box of cottons swaps already on the counter.

He doesn't watch while Dick goes about collecting evidence _off his own body_ , instead excuses himself to the kitchen so he can get freezer bags they can use for the hair and the swabs. Once that's done, Dick turns the shower on, and it's not until he's extending his hand into the flow, testing the temperature, that Jason remembers this might not be proper procedure and could bite them in the ass later on.

“Wait,” he says, reaching for Dick's arm but stopping himself midair. “Have you talked to anyone yet? The police? Gordon? There's more – “

“I'm not going to the police,” Dick interjects. “Like I said, the hair and tissue is the only evidence we'll find. We can handle this on our own. And we sure as hell won't tell anyone else.”

The protest Jason wants to offer in return never makes it out. For one, it'd sure be hypocritical if he, of all people, insisted Dick to go the police and trust the system on this. And then, it's not his choice. It's Dick's. If Dick says he wants the knowledge of what happened to stay in this room, stay between them, then Jason won't argue.

 

***

 

Jason sticks around while Dick's in the shower, sitting on the closed toilet lid and staring at his hands. He goes to get him some underwear, sweatpants and a t-shirt while Dick dries himself off, dresses, and pops a few painkillers. After that, they return to the living room and settle on opposite ends of the couch.

“He got me the day after you left,” Dick says into the silence, unprompted, his gaze trained on where he's playing with the hem of his t-shirt. “In broad daylight, after another one of those damn business meetings. He must have followed me, and the only thing I remember is a sting in my upper arm while I was walking through a crowd and then I blacked out, so I assume he injected me with something.”

His hand stills, and he draws one leg up in front of himself again, resting his chin on his knee. It's not a pose that's usually in his repertoire, and Jason's kind of starting to despise the sight; it makes him look too small, too vulnerable. “You had no reason to assume you're in danger or expect a threat,” he argues. “Could've happened to any one of us.”

“Yeah. Sure.” The scornful glance Dick shoots him speaks volumes. “I woke up in a basement, hands locked in handcuffs above my head, rope around my ankles.” He pauses, turns his wrists to look at where he rubbed them raw. “I didn't want to fight him too hard at first, he had Dick Grayson, the pampered Wayne heir, and not Nightwing, and when I did it was too late – “

“Hey,” Jason protests, maybe a little too harsh, too loud in volume, because Dick's gaze whips up to him, and Jason can't quite decide whether he looks afraid or affronted. But, ah, at least he's got his full attention now. “Hey, listen to me. There's no version of this story where what happened could ever be your fault, okay? None.”

Dick rolls his eyes, but his expression softens a little. “Save your breath, I gave that speech to more victims than I can count.” He scowls at his own words and it doesn't take a bat-level detective to figure out which one of them left such an unpleasant aftertaste.

“Did he keep you drugged the whole time?” Jason asks. Not all that sneaky for a distraction attempt and the topic doesn't lighten the mood any, but Dick takes the opening.

“Yes and no. He didn't inject me again, but he forced some kind of tea or broth down my throat, and I...” Here he draws up the other leg too, arms crossed over them, eyes cast down. “That did something to me. I couldn't refuse him anymore, after that. He'd grin, look me in the eye, drawl an order, and I would just... do it. The first was to stop fighting him. Struggling did still work, but I couldn't _refuse_. Hold still, yeah. Get up on all fours, yep, instantly. Spread your legs, sure, no second thought about that either. It was like my body moved on its own and – “

“I get the picture.” It comes out louder than he meant, again, or maybe it just reverberates more in the otherwise quiet room.

But Jason can't keep listening. His imagination has returned to the task of figuring out just _how many times_ it would have been. Two days, forty-eight hours. That might not sound like much, but Jason's intimately familiar with just how slowly time can crawl when you're at the mercy of another human being and they've decided it's play time. Not like _that_ , of course, but... no. No, he's not going to get hung up on this now. He can do that later. This isn't about him.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “Go on. Or don't, really, just. Your choice.”

Dick hesitates, glancing up at him. He swallows visibly, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and guilt washes over the back of Jason's neck like something physical. He's screwing this up. Whatever Dick needs right now, it probably isn't him. But he's the one Dick picked, or just the one who found him; he isn't sure it was a choice, and he isn't brave enough to ask. He tries a smile, but it feels like he's attempting to bend solid steel into something soft. He's pretty certain it looks more like a grimace.

But maybe the good intentions shine through, because Dick continues. “After he... I don't know, had enough, got bored, ran out of time, whatever, he told me to get dressed, forget his face, and go home. And that's what I did. I put my clothes back on and marched straight home. I sat here on the couch, waiting for you. And I couldn't remember what he looks like to safe my life.”

Neither of them says anything else for a good few minutes, and that's when Jason's mind catches up on the conversation, proceeds and dissects what had been said. A herbal broth. Mind control via verbal command. He _knows_ what that means.

“There's a flower that grows in the Himalaya,” he says. “Some kind of rare alpine aster. The people there call it the Devil's Peace. Dried and made into a broth with some other ingredients, it's said that it allows their priests to bend the mind of another. Sound familiar?”

“Devil's Peace, huh? I don't feel very peaceful right about now.” Dick frowns. “So is that going to be permanent?”

Jason does his best to ignore the hint at Dick's mental state – that's obvious, and if he wants to talk about that, too, he will – relieved that he's been provided with something for his brain to latch onto, figure out, examine. “As far as I remember, no. It's basically hypnosis and depends on the person. Might last a few weeks, might be months or a year, but it fades eventually.”

“Okay,” says Dick, already shifting so he can put his feet back on the ground and rise to a stand. He hisses when he straightens up, eyes screwed shut for a moment, one hand flailing out to the backrest to steady himself. “So until then, we'll have to solve this the old-fashioned way.”

Once more, Jason suppresses the urge to step in and offer physical support. He'll give it when Dick asks, and only then. There's not much Jason can do right now, but he can ensure that Dick won't be touched without his expressed permission for as long as they're alone.

 

***

 

The old-fashioned way, in this case, is an exercise in frustration.

Even the high-level, bat-adjacent tech they have takes a couple hours to run DNA, time Dick mostly spends silently pacing behind Jason, who in turn tries to will the analysis to run faster by glaring at the screen like it's his new worst enemy. That thought is not entirely off the mark, he figures; it's what keeping him from knowing whether or not he'll have a trace on his _actual_ new worst enemy. The upside is that there's something to run at all. He did leave some pubic hair behind. And the downside of _that_ is that the blinking percentages on that stupid computer screen serve as constant reminder of how that evidence was gained. How it got there in the first place.

At some point, Jason just can't take it anymore – has no idea how Dick manages – and swirls around in the desk chair. “Hey, shouldn't we be multitasking?”

Dick halts in his steps and raises an eyebrow.

“I've been thinking,” Jason says, “and the MO seems a little evolved for a first time offender. So he either put a lot of preparation and planning into targeting you specifically – “

“Or he has done this several times before and has a routine in place,” Dick completes the sentence. He strides over the computer and leans over the back of the chair.

Jason had no idea how much he's been yearning to have him up close, assure himself that this is still Dick, still feels and smells like him, until Dick's right there. It's nothing sexual; that couldn't be further from his mind right now. But looking at him from a distance, however small it is, doesn't carry the message home the same way, that Dick's here right now and safe for the moment. He might not be okay, won't be for a while, but he'll get there. They'll get there together. Dick is nothing if not stubborn, and bouncing back from whatever knocked him down has always been one of his core characteristics. He doesn't get bogged down and lost in his hurt, his anger, like Jason does. Eventually, he'll be fine.

Pinning down what to filter for when they search isn't hard, and it's successful: after half an hour of work they're staring of a grand total of rape victims with odd, inexplicable memory loss, three female and two male, all high-profile and rich, all born into money, and all having walked back into their homes after two or three days with no recollection of their attacker's face. But the files are depressing – the police has no leads whatsoever. They, too, have collected DNA, but they don't have any suspects to compare it with. Apart from their social status the victims have little in common, except for the fact that they all live alone and none of them have jobs that require their daily appearance; rich kids by trade. He takes someone else every few months. All crime scenes have been tracked down and processed, and he only uses them once. There is _nothing_.

Jason plops back in his chair, making it creak ominously. “Given his preferred hunting grounds, I'm stunned we haven't heard of this. How is that not all over the news?”

“Think about it,” Dick replies. “If we'd gone to Gordon, told Bruce about this, did it proper, do you think he'd let the press strew it around?”

And yeah, he's not wrong. Bruce would have marched into the station and burned those records himself before he'd let even one word of them leak to the press. The same probably goes for the other parents, and they all have the money and influence to ensure that. Privacy can be bought. Taking high-profile victims might actually be working in the attacker's favor here; a spree like this would have become a media spectacle by now if he'd taken random nobodies.

After that, it's not too much of a surprise when the DNA results don't yield any matches.

The computer spits out the negative result, and they sit in silence for a while. It's Dick who breaks it, his voice calm, professional, almost too even. “Can you get your hands on that flower?”

Jason considers that; he might. He's got a few people he can ask. There's little you can't get your hands on in their circles and line of work, if you have the right contacts. “Yeah. Probably. But I'm not sure I have a Himalayan priest on speed dial.”

“I don't think we'd need one. We have you.” Dick holds up his cell phone and gives it a shake. “I looked it up. All it takes, it says here, is a strong will and an incline towards magic. Doesn't have to be a real priest.”

Of course he googled it. He would. Jason snorts. “And you think I have that?”

“You died, climbed out of the Lazarus Pit and were trained by the League,” Dick says, rolling his eyes – he never liked explaining conclusions that seem obvious to him. He will explain them, and he will do so patiently, but he doesn't _like_ it. “Yeah, I do think you qualify. And I love how you questioned _that_ but not me implying you're pigheaded.”

“Trust me, I'm aware of my flaws,” Jason shoots back. “And once we have the ingredients, what do you suggest we do with them?”

Dick shrugs his shoulders. “Try and counter the hypnosis. Try and break it. Find a way around it. I don't know yet.” Then he looks at Jason, expression caught in loop of determined and pleading that would, right now, have Jason promise him the world to make this better. “I just need to do _something_.”

 

***

 

Left with nothing to do but wait and kill the remaining time, Jason suggests they get some rest. To his massive surprise, Dick actually accepts, nods and starts for the bedroom.

Jason follows, but stops in the door frame. “Do you want me to, uh. Should I sleep on the couch?”

“No,” Dick says, albeit after a moment of consideration. “No, I want you to stay here. It's okay. I think I'll feel safer knowing I'm not alone, and that you're right next to me.”

That'd be the kind of admission Jason would store away under normal circumstances, ready to dig it out and hold over Dick's head whenever possible. In the current situation, however, it just makes him sad.

Dick stays in his t-shirt and sweatpants, laying down with his legs drawn up and his head pillowed on his arms, then hefts an eyebrow at Jason until he too strips to undershirt and boxers and sits on the bed, back against the headboard, as far from him as possible without sliding right back off the mattress.

Apparently displeased, Dick gives a long sigh and props his head up on one arm. “Jay, don't be ridiculous. Get over here.”

Jason mutely shakes his head. He can't even imagine where to put his hands without... he just can't imagine.

“I'm not suddenly made of glass and you are still allowed to touch me,” Dick says, now rising into a sitting position. “And I could actually use... would you _please_ get over here?”

Slowly, unassertive, Jason inches over. He remains sitting, but holds up his arms, and Dick displays no reservations when he shifts and pulls himself further up on the bed, curling up with his head in Jason's lap. He flips this way and that a few more times, like he's searching for a comfortable position, hisses and curses when he seems to have moved entirely wrong.

“You're in pain,” Jason states.

Dick glares at him, face otherwise still in the telltale hard lines that come with trying to breathe through his hurt. “Yeah, no shit. You picked up on that, huh?”

“Hey, you're not the only one in this room trained to be a sleuth.” Jason tries a smile with that one, but it doesn't do anything to soften Dick's expression. “I'm guessing you won't listen to me if I tell you to go see someone about that, will you?”

“I have plenty good painkillers, and it's not like you could just put a bandage and some salve on this one, right? Kinda hard to reach,” Dick says, and shrugs; Jason can feel the movement against his leg as well as see it. “And you do realize how hypocritical that is, right, you of all people telling me to seek help?”

“Well,” Jason says, going for deadpan. “Don't tell anyone, but usually, in situations with feelings and all that icky stuff, I just ask myself, _what would Dickie do_. So it's your own fault, really. Just heading after the master here.”

Dick swats his arm and groans, which, fair, it was a pretty lame joke. But it serves its purpose, because it makes him relax a little, enough that Jason can feel the tension in his muscles lessen where they touch. He shifts again, more carefully this time. “So how did Roy take it down?”

“What?” Jason asks, momentarily lost as to what Roy has to do with any of this.

“The spaceship,” Dick elaborates. “What stunt did he pull this time?”

And yeah, now Jason remembers, having mentioned that when he got here. That seems like ages ago, now, even though it was only a few hours. “Shot the engine while we were still smack underneath that thing. I mean, it did work, it came down, but we had to run like hell to avoid being smashed to bits.”

There's more to that story, but right now, he doesn't feel like the long version. It seems pointless somehow.

“Yeah,” Dick says. “Definitely sounds like him.”

They lapse into silence, and Jason keeps his mind as empty as he can while he listens for Dick's breathing. Hopes to find it even out, signaling he's fallen asleep. It doesn't, for a long while. At some point, he starts carding his fingers through Dick's hair, gently, poised to retract his hand immediately on the first sign of discomfort.

“When we find him,” he says after a long while, voice low, “do you want me to kill him? Because I would.” And no, that doesn't sound right. Hypothetical maybes are worth shit. Jason's ready to do it; he'd put a bullet between that guy's eyes and not once feel bad about it. Not something he does on the regular anymore, but someone's done this to his... well, boyfriend would be overstating things, brother has always seemed inappropriate, and friend – they've never been that. Anyway, that's not the point. “I will. All you have to do is say the word.”

“Don't tempt me,” Dick says, and it's both not the answer Jason expected and uncomfortably close to the one he kinda hoped for. Not a go-ahead, but an admission that the thought must have gone through Dick's head too – even though he'd never act on it, still, and that, at least, is reassuring.

Dick lifts his head then, giving him a look that's impossible to read, before he reaches up, bunching a handful of Jason's shirt between his fist, and pulls him down. At the same time, he angles his head up. The kiss is quick, the position awkward, and Jason doesn't want to think about the reason – whether it's a thank you, and what for. Then he moves again, until his face is buried against Jason's belly, hidden from sight, and Jason notices the slightly pronounced way his chest rises and falls with deliberate, deep, slow, steadying breaths.

They even out eventually, and Jason keeps listening until he himself falls asleep.

 

***

 

The ring tone on his phone wakes him some hours later, and it has Dick stirring too. They untangle themselves, and Jason takes the call after glancing at the number. His contact for the flower and the other ingredients, and after some negotiating, they agree that Jason picks the delivery up in front of the building and pays with the cash he's got on hand and the promise of a future favor.

Back upstairs, he unpacks the generic plastic bag and lays its contents out on Dick's coffee table.

“That stuff looks so innocuous,” Dick says, thoughtful. “Hard to believe it can be used for something so twisted.”

“Most magic does,” Jason replies. “If it _looks_ impressive, it's usually bullshit.” He picks the satchel with the flower up and opens the strap that held it closed. It looks like something found at every other florist's, ready to be bound into a bouquet; bright yellow and orange blossoms, stems and leafs still attached, all still fresh. Jason suspects getting them this fast either involved metas and/or portals, or the same supplier Dick's attacker had, and okay, that's not a helpful thought.

The other thought flickering through Jason's mind when they both glance down at the little satchel never gets voiced, either; Jason knows him better than that, and anyway, it would be inadvisable. Dick's memory will return eventually, one way or another, and there's too much risk in making him forget and then simply sending him on his merry way. It'll come back. It'll all come back.

“Alright,” he says and turns his head, glancing expectantly at Dick. “You're in charge here. What are we trying first?”

Dick scratches his neck. “Uh, overwriting the command? Tell me to remember.”

“Okay,” Jason confirms, and gestures for the instruction Dick had pulled up on his phone. They're on the darknet, so chances are they're actually valid. He figures they'll find out.

Half an hour later and after some, well, cooking of some sort, they're ready for that first try, which promptly fails; Dick’s memories stay locked. They test the effectiveness next, using some simple innocent commands, which Jason insists be done on him – Dick's head has been screwed with more than enough – and which at least confirms that the broth basically works.

“It makes sense that it wouldn't work for your memory,” Jason says, earning himself a frustrated frown from Dick. “I mean, that the only one who'd be able to take back a spell would be the same person who inflicted it. Kinda logical.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Dick allows. “So what next?”

Jason points towards Dick's computer. “We hit the proverbial books. That shit's been around for a long time. Maybe someone knows a way to inactivate its effects. I have some people I can ask, too, if that's okay with you.”

Glancing at his phone over in the living room, Dick nods. “Yeah. Me too.”

They both know who he's talking about; one of them anyway. Jason leaves him to it in the living room while he does his calls in the backroom, putting the computer on task at the same time. He tries not to listen in, tries not to listen to Dick lie to the Bat, try and bullshit his way through a normal conversation and make up a reason for his request. The expression on Dick's face when he joins him in the backroom tells him all he needs to know about how that went.

Predictably, Bats is also the first to call back; that he doesn't have a solution is more of a surprise. Neither does anyone else, and their own search also brings up jack shit.

“You said it's basically hypnosis,” Dick muses when they've powered down the computer, both of them facing the fact that this, too, has been a dead end. “So it should be possible to break the influence by forcing off the hold of the spell. Forcing the memories back, in this case.”

And whoa, does Jason hate the sound of that. “Please tell me you're not talking about, what? Triggering you until your brain snaps and lets you remember?”

“Yeah, I thought you might not like the idea.” Dick shoots him a crocked grin, which is overdone and all bravado and kinda makes Jason want to punch him. But he sobers pretty quickly, looking Jason straight in the eye and breathing in slowly. “Also, you'll like this even less: I want you to do it.”

“Excuse me?” Jason prompts, because he cannot possibly have heard that right. “You want me to do _what_?”

“Let’s call it high-stakes role play,” Dick says, and his tone is way too conversational. “We wipe me, and you threaten me, go to town until – “

Up to now he's stared right back into Dick's eyes, his face, looking for a hint that he's not serious about this, that this is all a bad joke, a test, something. But now he has to avert his eyes and turn away. He scrubs a hand down his face and blinks, as if that would make reality shift back into something he understands. As if it would undo this whole conversation. “And you'd believe I could... that I'd be capable of doing that to you?”

He hears Dick approach, and nevertheless jumps when he feels a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. And that's wrong too; Dick shouldn't be the one having to comfort _him_.

“You did almost shoot me in the head a few times, didn't you?” Dick says, in a tone that might be meant to sound like a joke. It doesn't, and Jason snorts, turning back around, shaking off Dick's hand in the process. When he looks at him again, Dick's expression has morphed into something desperate, pleading. “I don't know. But I won't have to actually believe anything. I just have to be afraid enough to imagine you _might_ , so you'd just have to sell it well enough for that.”

Jason shakes his head. “Forget it. I'm not doing it. No way.”

In response, Dick's face hardens. “In that case, I'll have to find someone else, won't I? There's probably a whole host of people who'd jump at the chance. And they won't pretend. They won't immediately stop as soon as I remember.”

“That's not fair,” Jason protests. Dick's right about that one, though; the number of sick assholes in Gotham who'd enjoy the hell out of an offer like that sure isn't small. And most of them won't give a single fuck about an agreement made in advance. That situation would be volatile and dangerous, uncontrollable. And if he's dead set on doing it either way, it might be safer if Jason's doing it himself. In that case, at least, he can control the situation. He can be sure Dick's with someone who's only pretending, who cares about him.

And he might be an open book right now, because Dick takes a step towards him and says, “I'll be safe with you. Please.”

“Okay,” Jason concedes, against his better judgment; it's not like Dick's leaving him another option. “But I'm not going to actually... I won't be going that far. You can't ask me to do _that_.”

“I won't,” Dick says, and he's using that smile again, the one that's hardly covering his fear, terror, or desperation. “I'm not. A hand job, some light fingering, if it comes to that. Nothing we haven't done before, right? And if that doesn't work, well, I guess I'll be looking for a good therapist after all.”

“Maybe we should try that first, anyway,” Jason tries, in a last ditch attempt to turn this around, while purposefully ignoring the comparison to their regular sex life. They surely haven't done _anything_ like that before. And besides, Dick's supposed to be the reasonable one between the two of them. He's supposed to know _better_ than this. They ought to be calculating their risks, and not ruin themselves for the sake of saving someone else.

“What, get therapy, nice and safe, wait until I'm ready to face the memory or whatever?” Dick shakes his head, emphatically. “Not before we tried everything else. Plus, this isn't like that. He kept me from remembering. It'll be _weeks_ , maybe _months_. And if he gets to someone else in the meantime it'll be our fault. Mine and yours.”

“Nothing about this is your fault.“ Jason tries to argue, but he sees Dick's face close up further, achieving the exact opposite of what he's trying to do, what he's arguing for. “This is wrong. It's gonna make you worse. You need – “

He doesn't get a chance to finish that sentence before Dick interrupts him.

“Oh, come on, drop it,” Dick says and reaches out to grip Jason's wrist, barely this side of too hard. “What I need is knowing that whoever did this to me can't do it to anyone else. _Promise me._ ”

Jason scowls. There mere thought continues to turn his stomach, but even under normal circumstances there's little that can get in the way of Dick's determination. And this is far from normal. He _might_ march out of here right now and get himself seconds from a random third-class villain if he thinks that's keeping future victims out of harm’s way.

Jason wrenches himself free again, can't bear Dick's touch in the face of what he's about to do to him, but he knows they're done talking about this. Mouth suddenly too dry for words, he simply nods.

 

***

 

Their first step is once again imprinting the command that cuts off Dick's ability to fight, to resist, only this time towards Jason. Dick's eyes go wide as he gives it, and his breath hitches; already getting at a memory, Jason suspects. That means this might actually work; it also means Jason might have to excuse himself to the bathroom and throw up good and proper before they even get started.

But he swallows down the acid that crawls up his throat and stays right where he is. If Dick's somehow able to deal with this, then so can he. It does occur to him, however, that they'll want to move locations. This is Dick's _home_ , his safe space, and the least Jason can do is make sure he'll still have that when this is all over. His suggestion to that effect is accepted with a shrug; apparently not a point Dick considers worth squabbling over. They get dressed in silence – including their suits, the whole nine, because they both agree that a case is the most likely scenario for Dick to end up in one of Jason's safe house – and drive over.

Once they're there, Dick insists on giving him a play by play of everything he remembers – his argument being that Jason can't convincingly pretend he attacked him in the first place if he doesn't know what it is he's supposed to have done – and Jason's ability to keep violent surges of bile at bay receives another thorough test drive. The worst thing about it, content aside, is that he's so clinical about it. Detached, like he's reading from a police report of a crime that happened to someone else. Simple facts. No outward reaction, not even a flicker of emotion on his face. _He did this, then that. He fucked me, there, like that, then again, and again. He beat me. He had a knife, which he didn't use but sure liked to lord over me. He jerked me off. He knew what he was doing. I actually got hard at that one, and I came once or twice._ Those latter instances Jason files away carefully, even though his eyes burn with unshed tears that are half helpless rage, half sympathy. He figures they might have to talk about _that_ at some point in the future, to keep it from festering in the wrong way.

After that, Dick asks for the broth, and Jason complies. He tells Dick to forget the assault as well as the last couple of months, anything that happened between them. Then he sits down in front of his computer, building the charade of a case that he hopes will hold up long enough that Dick's going to feel safe, at first, until Jason figures out how he's going to pull the rug out from under him.

And then he waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait until Friday with posting this, but... ah, what the hell. 
> 
> Also, a few words to the direction this thing will be taking from here on in, now that the cat is out of the bag in regards to the mystery/twist: what got me about ITW was thinking about the possible fallout from the charade for the sake of triggering memories, and so yes, this is going to be lots and lots more words of me having a field day with that. Aftermath and recovery, progress and setbacks, and sorting out the emotional mess that's been left between them in the wake of these events. I'm gonna update the tags with the next update, which should arrive next week.


	4. Chapter 4

**NOW**

_“It wasn't you,” Dick says, his own voice small, and even to his own ears it sounds halfway like a question._

 _“No, Dickie,” Jason replies, all but whispers it against Dick's temple. “It wasn't me.”_

 

*** 

 

Dick doesn't know how long he sits there, trying once again to sort out the past and the present. The order of events, the line between reality and make-believe, should probably be clearer now. And they are, but... 

He gathers what strength and force of will he's got left and inches away from Jason, leans against the wall instead. Sitting hurts. Moving hurts. Everything hurts, in ways he never thought possible, and he's got _a lot_ of experience when it comes to pain. His arms throb and his stomach is cramping painfully, and he's sore all over, but that's the kind of ache he's used to, variations on the kind of injuries that are part and parcel in their line of work. In between all of that, there's one stroke of agony that's different and that makes his blood turn into ice water, makes him want to scream when he thinks about the cause. 

Which means he probably shouldn't think about it. Not right now. He should shove that thought down, bury it deep, and look at it some other time. He rakes a hand through his hair – matted and sweaty, clinging to his forehead, even despite the fact that he's freezing cold – and, with some effort, manages to meet Jason's eyes. 

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” he demands. 

Jason meets his gaze and reaches out, but aborts the motion midway, pulling his hand back. “I'll explain in a minute. But first... you remember his face, right? You saw him?” 

Screwing his eyes shut, Dick nods. He's remembering alright. He might not ever be able to scrub that face, _that grin_ , out of his memory again. 

“Okay,” Jason says. “Okay. Look at me one more time, yeah? Look at me, just me, and listen.” 

Dick sets his jaw and holds Jason's eyes. 

“I want you to remember what I told you to forget,” Jason says after a long exhale. “I want you to remember us. I want you to remember – “ Here he hesitates, and his voice is thin, lower, when he continues. “I want you to remember the last couple of days. I want you to remember everything that happened in this basement, and I want you to remember whatever you can of him.” 

Barely half of that makes sense, and Dick is about to open his month and ask that Jason give him a proper explanation, when the memories flood back in like a spring tide crashing to shore, drowning out everything in its path. From one second to the next, it's _all back_ : the memories of what took place in this very room, this very spot, overbears everything else – not a dream, and oh, part of him desperately wishes he could have hung on to the belief that none of it was real. But there's more underneath. There's _Jason_. Him and Jason, the last couple of months; touch that wasn't forceful or unwanted, and it's surreal, now, after having been afraid of him for the last couple hours. Then there's Jason, after. His own determination and Jason's fumbling, futile attempts to streamline it; the only person he could imagine sharing this with, he could bear _knowing_. Their agreement. The ritual. 

And then, the face of his attacker, still nameless, but clear and unforgettable. The meeting at Wayne Enterprises, and in hindsight Dick can't comprehend how those features, curved into a smile, could have ever seemed harmless to him. 

He's blinking back tears by the end of it, aware all over again of just how exhausted he is, how hard it is to think. He just wants it to be _over_. At the same time, he understands that this feeling, the pit of pain and despair that had been carved into him over the course of hours, _days_ , will take a while to stop being such a burning hurt and smooth out into scar tissue. 

When he comes back to himself, finally, Jason's standing above him, eyes averted, holding out the discarded pair of jeans. “Let's get out of here. You can tell me what you recall about him on the way back to your place.” 

 

*** 

 

They haven't been back in that basement for long, but on the ride over to his apartment, the bright light outside hurts Dick's eyes. Maybe it's metaphorical; the sun has risen on a new day and it's somehow wrong. More so since Gotham's not a cheerful place on any given day, and now it's like she's mocking him. Which sounds stupid. He groans at himself, lowers his head and shields his eyes, and hears clothes rustling beside him when Jason fidgets in the driver's seat. His dark reputation sometimes overshadows the softer parts of him, like how attuned to other people he can get, reading and anticipating their moods from the tiniest clues. And, in all honesty, chances are he doesn't even have to pay such close attention right now. Dick's probably sending neon signs. 

“I've met him before,” Dick starts, because they were going to talk about it and they _need_ to talk about it and Jason hasn't asked yet. “He was in a few of Bruce's business meetings. Seemed nice at the time. Flirted with me once or twice. I never memorized his name, but I'll recognize him. There'll be personnel files and photos.” 

Jason looks over, briefly, then his eyes flicker back to the road. “So we got him.” 

“Yeah,” Dick confirms. “We'll still need to deliver proof so the cops can pin him down, but we got him.” 

They lapse into silence again for a few more minutes, and Dick leans back in his seat, ignoring the sparks of pain that run through him at the change in position. He closes his eyes and he's exhausted enough to drift... 

“I'm sorry.” Jason's voice pulls him back to alertness. “For – ” He trails off and huffs in frustration; from what Dick gathered he doesn't run out of words very often, and when he does, he's terribly annoyed by it. “For everything I did to you today. For putting you through that _again_.” 

Dick just manages to hold off on the impulse to shrug; there would be too many aching muscles involved. “Why? You did what I asked. And it worked.” 

_Ask_ is a rather generous term for the arguments Dick threw at him so he'd agree, but he's not sorry for that yet. He might be, down the line. But for the moment he's still got that filed under _necessary_. 

“I know,” Jason says. “But I'm still sorry.”

On the last word, he reaches across the seat and tries to wrap his hand around Dick's, and Dick surprises himself when he pulls his hand away so fast it startles them both. 

“I'm...” he starts, but can't really summon the words to finish that sentence. “Just. Not right now, okay?” 

What he meant to say is that the thought of someone, anyone – _Jason_ , especially Jason – touching him right now makes his skin crawl, and even that small contact felt almost scalding. He's raw all over, his every nerve ending exposed in the worst way, even a lingering look enough to make him feel like he's been burnt, a sharp and acidic sensation. 

Jason shoots him another glance, not much longer than the previous one. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you need.” 

Neither of them says anything else for the rest of the drive, and Dick leans back again, closing his eyes against the brightness and normalcy all around them. 

 

*** 

 

The first thing Dick does upon arriving at his place is change his clothes after a quick cat bath to get off the grime from the basement. Jason hangs back around the bathroom door, like he's half-expecting to get yelled at and half-expecting to be invited along, and Dick's not quite in the mood for either. He closes the door in his face instead and listens to his footsteps tapering off to the couch or the kitchen or wherever, and only then does he shed the slightly too large jeans and the t-shirt that still, faintly, carries Jason's scent. 

He looks at himself in the mirror before he starts lathering himself down. There's nothing particularly unusual about seeing bruises on his face and body, about being covered in dirt or dried blood. He's stood in front of his own reflection countless times before, tired and aching, and thought little of it. On the outside, nothing has changed. Nothing's different. And he's not sure how he feels about that yet. 

But yeah, there'll be enough time for introspection later. They're not done here; not until an arrest has been made and Dick can be certain that asshole won't get to take anyone else. 

He's just done getting dressed, about to step out of the bathroom and come up with a strategy for that last part, when his cell phone rings. For a moment he's confused why it's in here, then he realizes the noise is coming from a pile on the floor that's already been there when he came home. The clothes he wore the other day. The dirty, bloody dress shirt and the slacks and the dress jacket and – 

He shakes his head to break the train of thought, digs through the pile, and manages to take the call before it stops ringing. 

“Hey,” says Tim on the other end of the line, and that one word already makes it obvious what kind of call this is. He sounds _concerned_. But there's no way they could have found out what happened... is there? 

A few seconds to steady himself, and then he returns the greeting, doesn't bother asking whether this is about case. “Hey. What's up?” 

That prompts a pause from Tim, which has Dick's anxiety rising. He doesn't know what he's going to do if they found out. He has no idea how he'd ever look either of them in the eye again. They can't know. That can't be what this is. They just _can't_. 

“Your call yesterday,” Tim continues, still with an edge of hesitation. Still doesn't have to mean anything. None of them are touchy-feely, so how-are-you's don't come easy between them. “Alfred said you sounded off, and B's all grumpy. I think they're worried. Are you okay?” 

There's still the possibility that it's a trick question, but no. Tim wouldn't do that. He's too straightforward. Hasn't beat around the bush since he figured out Dick was Robin, he won't start now. “Weird investigation, and I got beat up. Give it a few days and I'll be fine.” 

“Okay,” Tim says. He doesn't sound entirely convinced. “So we'll take you off the roster for a few days?” 

“Yeah,” Dick agrees. “Thanks.” 

He disconnects the call without waiting for another reply. 

Then he stands in the bathroom for a couple moments, his eyes flicking back and forth between the phone still in his hand and the pile of dirty clothes. They're evidence, technically, which means they should be bagged and examined and filed away. But he knows, _he knows_ , there won't be anything on them but his blood, his spunk, his sweat. Maybe a few fibers, or a hair, if they're really lucky. But they've already got the pubic hair and the tissue from his nails and the police will have plenty other trace evidence from the other victims. And it's not like he plans on putting all this on public record. 

It goes against everything he learned and it feels incredibly selfish, but he puts the cell phone aside, bundles the clothes up in his arms and marches out of the bathroom with them, straight to the washing machine in the kitchen. 

Jason rises from the couch as soon as he notices him and follows, watches him push the whole pile in the washer, everything in one go, underwear included, put in detergent, and send the whole thing on its way. 

He doesn't speak until the machine's already begun rumbling, water rushing into the drum. “Shouldn't that have been dry-cleaned?” 

“What?” Dick veers around on him, staring. 

Jason points at the washing machine, outwardly calm, but it's unlikely he didn't recognize which clothes those were and there's worry in his eyes. Like he's afraid Dick might be losing it, and oh, that's a new one. “That's the good stuff, right? Designer threads? I don't think you're supposed to just throw those in the machine.” 

“I don't care.” Huffing at him, Dick heads towards the computer room. He's right. Of course he's right. But that would have meant uncomfortable questions, and he isn't going to keep them anyway. He just wanted to get rid of the reminder, couldn't stand the thought that evidence of what he's been through lay there out in the open for everyone to see, even though _everyone_ currently consists of him and Jason. 

Alright, so maybe he _is_ losing it a little. All the more reason to go to work and get this done. Put the guy behind bars so he can move on. 

He boots the computer up, ignoring Jason for the time being, and pulls up the Wayne Enterprises employee files. A little scrolling through awkward first day head shots, mandatory for all WE personnel down to the cleaning staff, and then... 

Dick thought he'd been prepared for seeing that face again. A photo on a screen can't do him any harm, can it? But the smile is too close to that day in the meeting, to all the times later, in the basement, and Dick reels back, physically putting the screen out of view. He's seconds away from hyperventilating, and his blood boils in his veins with fear and anger. He hates that he's reacting so strongly. Hates that he doesn't have a better grip on himself. 

“David Vaughn,” Jason reads, and yeah, Dick couldn't even stand to look long enough to get the name. “That sounds oddly... pedestrian. Ordinary.” 

Closing his eyes and pressing the tips of his forefingers to his eyelids, Dick inhales, then exhales, slow and controlled. He counts to ten in his head and looks back up. Keeps his focus on Jason, rather than the screen. “We need to get samples from him, hair, blood, anything, and then get them to the police once we've verified them. Give them something for comparison.” 

Jason steps around him, freeing the computer mouse Dick didn't even realize he still held, and minimizes the file into the task bar. “That should be doable.” 

And Dick's got an idea for how they'll get some too. He doesn't like it, certainly less so after the reaction he just had to a mere _picture_ , but if he has to do it, he'll manage. Somehow. He's been through worse, faced people who hurt or killed those he loved. He can do this, too. “I could, I don't know. Get to the next meeting and see if I can – “

“There's absolutely no way I'll let you march into the same room as him,” Jason cuts in, not yelling, but he raises his voice a notch or two. “None. Not happening. Forget it.” 

“Okay,” Dick says, keeping his own voice level with some effort. “One, that's not your call to make, it's mine. And two, got a better idea?” 

He jerks his shoulder in what's half shrug, half nod. “I do. He's not the only one who can run into someone randomly in a busy street. And – “ there he gives Dick a pointed glare “ – I'll do it. That's not debatable. I get that it's your call and all, and I'm not trying to be patronizing or infringe on anything, but... no. Nope. _I_ can't stand the thought of putting that on you.” 

The disconnect between words and body language would be funny, if Dick felt at all like laughing. Worry, in Jason, can look one hell of a lot like infuriation. And maybe it really is both in this case. Exasperation and a short fuse. Being worried for Dick, and enraged on his behalf. In a weird way, it's almost touching. 

“Okay,” Dick relents. “But I'll go with you. I'm not going to sit around here and wait.” 

“I'd have expected nothing else,” says Jason, giving him a grin that looks somewhat forced, and that expression also sends Dick's pulse up. Not as much, and he does a much better job on pushing the reaction right back down, but it's there. 

He puts that on the list of things he'll sort out later. 

 

*** 

 

Between the two of them, tailing Vaughn and pinning down a convenient location for his involuntary little blood donation doesn't take long. That’s easiest, they decided: brushing past, a needle, and by the time he'll have noticed the prick Jason could have melted back into the crowd. They won't draw a huge amount that way, but that's okay; it'll do for analysis. 

Dick watches from a distance, on a nearby rooftop with his heart in his throat. All he can make out from so far away are their silhouettes and he knows that Jason is no amateur and it's not logical that Vaughn would carry his sedative around when he isn't on the hunt. Still, he can hardly breathe until it's done and he sees Jason retreat back to their meeting point. 

When he lines up to the rooftop, smoothly landing on his haunches, Jason's expression is blank. He does hold up the small vial – a few drops, nothing more – as confirmation that he succeeded, but he's not smug or self-congratulatory, doesn't joke or tease like they normally might after a job well done. The hand that doesn't hold the vial gets balled together, as tightly as the gloves allow, once he puts away the zip gun. 

Dick looks at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Something wrong?” 

“No. Just.” Jason shakes his head and swallows. “You scratched him. There's a clear fingernail scratch at the side of his neck, and he hasn't even bothered to cover it up. You told me you did that, and it's... I don't know, it just all became real. What he did. To you. _He did that._ ” 

Dick frowns and marches past him, ready to vault off the roof. “It's always been real to me.” 

 

***

 

They leave the DNA analysis and comparison overnight. Although there's no real doubt over the result at this point, Dick can't fathom sitting in front of the crawling progress bar for another couple of hours. Besides, he's dead tired, and the bags under Jason's eyes look like he's been punched at this point. They can't keep going anymore, physically, neither of them. 

When Dick heads for the bedroom, Jason stops in the middle of the living room, gaze dropping to his feet. “If you want me to leave now, you can tell me. I'm not going to stick around if that makes you worse.” 

“What makes you think you're making me worse?” asks Dick, even though they probably both know the answer. Jason's not blind, nor is he dumb. He's been paying close attention. He's good at reading people. He must have caught on. 

And sure enough, he sighs, and says, “I've seen the way you've been looking at me, in the car, when we got here, and earlier on the roof. Not only his face that you see when you close your eyes anymore, is it?” 

Jason makes half a step towards him, then seems to think better of it, like he's torn between offering comfort and giving space. That leaves him hovering awkwardly near the couch, and well, yeah. On second thought, he's been doing that since he first found him – gentle to a degree that's damn near coddling, reining himself back from physical contact that would have been natural to them before, and always asking, always testing the waters. And really, Jason and hovering, those two should not go together. It's wrong. It's all wrong. This conversation is surreal. None of this feels right. Dick himself _doesn't feel right_. 

“I don't want you to go,” he admits. “But I'm also not sure I want you around.” 

Jason finally brings himself to close the distance and stride up to where Dick's standing. He glances into the bedroom, than behind himself. Raises his hand, only to put it back down without touching yet again. “I'll sleep on the couch, okay? So I'll be here if anything happens, you'll know you're not alone, and still don't have to be, you know.” He rubs the back of his neck, as if looking for something to do with his hands that _isn't_ reaching out towards Dick. “Actually near me.” 

Dick thinks that over, then nods. He grabs Jason's wrist when he turns away, halting him, and hauls him back around so they're facing each other. Jason stands still as a statue, free hand pressed to the side of his thigh, while Dick pecks him on the lips. It's nothing more than that, brief and chaste, and in the light of the things they've already done in the bed behind them it seems ridiculous. 

He gives Jason a quick smile – _we'll figure this out, it's okay, we'll be fine_ – and Jason remains where he is, eyeing him, until Dick closes the bedroom door. 

 

*** 

 

He wakes himself screaming.

Nightmares aren't exactly new territory for Dick, he's had them since he was a kid and they've gotten quite nasty at times, but this is the first time that he's _literally_ coming awake with the sound of his own hoarse screams still ringing in his ears. He wasn't even sure that was possible, not just some exaggerated bullshit that books and movies like to cite for added dramatic effect. 

Sitting up in the bed, he fumbles for the light switch on the bedside lamp. The room dips into dim orange light, illuminated enough so it's recognizable. It's alright. He's home. He's safe now. 

He looks up to find the bedroom door open and Jason's unmistakable silhouette standing in the doorway. “Bad dream?” 

Dick glares at him. “What do you think?”

Jason chuckles in response, somehow managing to make it sound mocking and self-deprecating at the same time, and that, too, is pleasantly familiar. Right then and there, Dick just wants _them_ back. He wants to pat the mattress and beckon him over. He wants to get lost in something physical, stop thinking for a little while; the very same thought makes his stomach cramp together, panic rising, almost giving him nausea. 

He wonders how it's possible that he can crave someone's touch and comfort so much, and be so revolted by the idea at the same time. 

But as he watches Jason stand there, skirting the bedroom door like a vampire waiting for a formal invitation, like he wouldn't even dreaming of entering until he gets the go-ahead, Dick reminds himself that Jason, for all his abrasive bravado, would never hurt him on purpose. Dick blackmailed him into it, and now he's letting himself be pushed away as a consequence. That doesn't undo what happened, doesn't erase the memories, but... Dick also remembers a few hours of dreamless sleep the other night when he was feeling warm, safe and protected. No matter what took place between them, Jason's still one of his _brothers_ , one of the people who would step between Dick and the forces of hell, if it came to that. And maybe that's stronger than the damning new memories they made the other day.

So he takes a deep breath, and he does pat the mattress. “Come join me.” 

“Are you sure?” Jason asks, sounding hesitant. He's not moving yet. 

Dick nods. “It helped yesterday, so. Worth a try.”

A few beats pass between them, in which Dick's almost sure he can hear his own heartbeat, ticking the seconds away like an old clock. Then Jason walks over to the bed, lifts the blanket on the other side, and slips underneath. He still keeps to the very edge, barely taking up enough space to be comfortable, and Dick decides to go for broke. He reaches out and curls one hand around Jason's hip, the other around his neck, and pulls. “I said, come _join me_.” 

In the shine of the lamp, Dick can see his reaction this time, can discern the desire to comply as well as the continued hesitation. But comply he does; he inches closer, and then stares at Dick expectantly, as if waiting for further guidance notes on what's okay and what's not, what's he supposed to be doing here. 

Dick lets go of him in favor of directing Jason's hand onto his own hip, putting the other on his shoulder, and then shifts, bridging the space between them. Jason holds out for another moment or two, and then he wraps his arms around him, cradling him, his superior height allowing him to nuzzle the top of Dick's head. 

At first it's like Dick's heart stops in his chest, his lungs seizing, making him gasp, and he's frozen, paralyzed with remembered panic at being held immobile, the response still fresh in his memory. But that doesn't last long. He doesn't relax all at once; his trepidation recedes gradually, eases a little with each breath that doesn't bring new pain. Then the familiarity in Jason's smell, in the sound of his breathing, the weight of him next to Dick in his own bed, becomes reassuring. It allows Dick to pretend nothing happened, simply another night they spend together, and the relief he feels at that realization nearly steals his breath away again. It's not perfect, it's not okay yet, but it's a start. It means they haven't lost this completely. It means they _can_ be alright again. And it's about more than that, beyond Jason or this thing they have; it also reminds him that he can reclaim this part of himself in general. It'll fade, won't always be this raw, and intimacy isn't going to be impossible forever. Which he knew, intellectually. Feeling it, however, is different. 

He nudges Jason's chin, biting along his jaw until he gets the memo and angles his head down. This kiss still isn't anything like the ones they used to share, tentative on both their parts, but it's a whole lot more than the one in the living room earlier. Dick's eyes are prickling with tears when they part and he mutely shakes his head with a weak smile when he sees the worry in Jason's expression, feels him trying to draw back. 

With his face buried against Jason's collarbone, unable to meet his gaze but also unable to stop the first tears from falling or to stop those from turning into deep, heaving sobs, Dick lets himself cry. Purge some of the hurt, some of the desperate fear, loosening the white-knuckled death grip he kept on his emotions for the last couple of days. 

He doesn't remember when it stops, and he doesn't remember dozing off. He does wake from dreamless sleep a couple hours later, his head still pillowed on Jason's chest, and waits, in that same position and keeping his eyes closed, until Jason wakes as well.


	5. Chapter 5

Jason hardly signals that he's woken, never does; he may tense slightly or shift incrementally, but there's no stretching of limbs or huge yawns. And they haven't shared the bed enough times yet for Dick to be attuned to those smaller tells, so Dick only notices that Jason is, in fact, awake, when the hand he had resting on Dick's back curls further around his waist, the other moving between them until he can tip Dick's chin up.

“Good morning,” he says, searching Dick's face. “Sleep okay?”

Under his scrutiny, well-meant as it might be, Dick remembers that he goddamn _cried himself to sleep_ in Jason's arms after screaming himself hoarse. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, insistent, dislodging Jason's fingers. He feels his face heat, shame and embarrassment creeping up his neck. It's funny, how he didn't have any compunctions about giving Jason a meticulous account of what he's been through, every violation, every position, all the insults and taunts that went with them. But last night, being small and afraid and weeping without inhibition, that's what renders him incapable of meeting his gaze.

And that's when he decides he won't let himself fall that far again; he couldn't prevent what happened to him, but he can damn well face the aftermath with his shoulders squared and both eyes straight ahead. A certain amount of trauma is an inevitable side effect of the job they're all doing. He dealt with that before. That it happened out of costume – both figuratively and literally – shouldn't change a thing.

Dick looks up and smiles, gives it his all, bright and reassuring. “Got a couple more hours in. There's been regular patrol nights where I slept less.”

“I'm glad.” Jason smiles back, but it's fraught and disbelieving. And well, given the breakdown he witnessed last night, it's not all too surprising that won't be convinced so easily. He gives Dick another once-over, and then wriggles his shoulder, the one Dick's still pillowed on, making to get up.

Dick sits up, but doesn't follow him when he gets out of bed. Sits there with the sheets pooled around him and watches as Jason marches into the bathroom, returns in nothing but his t-shirt, and fishes a fresh pair of boxers out of his designated drawer – a rather recent development, and one born out of practicality rather than romance. Their line of work doesn't exactly lend itself to carrying around overnight bags. Dick's got the equivalent of such a drawer at Jason's place too, and right now, that thought sends a cold shiver up his spine. He closes his eyes and sees himself on his back by that ratty couch he'd grown so fond of, with his underwear tangled around his legs, so shocked at having been betrayed by both Jason and his own body.

He shakes his head again. That was an illusion. Playing pretend. None of it was real. He was never in any danger, not with Jason.

He comes back to himself in time to catch Jason sitting on the edge of the bed, already having pulled on a pair of jeans and now bent over to tie his shoes.

"Going somewhere?" Dick inquires.

Jason doesn't turn. The muscles in his back and arms keep moving with their task, visible under the thin fabric of the shirt, uninterrupted, and any other time Dick would have felt compelled to cross the bed and _touch_. "It's on the police now to get him. We've done our part, so I figured I'll get out of your hair, give you some space."

"Ah,” Dick says, drawing the sound out, playing for time. The sudden thought of being alone horrifies him, and he spends a few seconds digging for a way to phrase his subsequent request that doesn't sound pathetic, doesn't sound like begging. "What if I don't want space?"

Now Jason sits up, shifting so his body is angled towards Dick. “You want me to stay?”

“I think we've sufficiently proven that I sleep better with you around,” he replies, trying to dress it in a joking, teasing tone. “And it'd be rude to banish you through the day and just call on you as a body pillow overnight, right?”

Jason's expression is more than doubtful, but he sighs, toeing his shoes right back off. “Guess so, yeah.”

With that, he stands, and Dick watches his retreating back until he's out of the bedroom, then flops back down on the bed, eyes closed and an arm thrown over his face. He spends a few minutes like that, just breathing through the awkwardness, the alien feeling his chest – like his life isn't his own anymore and someone changed the playbook while he wasn't looking – before he gets dressed as well.

He finds Jason in the kitchen, hip leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest. It'd be an imposing sight, if it weren't for the fact that he's wearing worn old boxers and a shirt that's technically Dick's and one hasty move away from bursting around his biceps. His gaze follows Dick around the room, and he altogether looks rather like a twelve-year-old waiting for his mother to find his report card. A really terrible report card. Like, nothing above a D.

“Spit it out,” Dick says, squinting at him. “What is it?”

Jason cuts his eyes away, then nods at the washing machine, and Dick's breathing speeds up against his will. Ah. Yeah. The clothes. He'd put them in there the other day, just needing them _gone_ , and didn't think about how he'd have to deal with them again once they're clean. Except now the machine seems empty. So does the dryer, when he checks that.

“I had them in the dryer overnight and put them away,” Jason explains. “Gonna get rid of them first chance I get. Unless you want me to – "

Dick holds up a hand and smiles, trying to look reassuring, confident, casual. _Normal_. “No. No, it's okay. I'm grateful. I wouldn't have known what to do with them, anyway.” Then he turns, only remembering to give an explanation as to where he's going once he's halfway out of the room. He stops, doesn't look back, not trusting the carefully summoned expression to hold. “I'll check the computer, see if the analysis is done.”

 

***

 

The DNA results are an exact match. That's no surprise, but it is a weight off Dick's chest. All they've left to do now is get the remaining sample to the police – via anonymous envelope smuggled into the right briefcase at lunch time – and wait for news on the arrest. It takes roughly a week for a DNA test done by the police in Gotham to be processed, even with Wayne-gifted technology. The high-profile victims might speed things up, but, to put it simply, the GCPD is _busy_.

While he sits on the computer, about to power it down, Dick looks at the notifications about recent cases in a small window at the bottom of the screen. There's nothing big: Bruce forced the arrest of a couple mid-level drug dealers, Tim's taken down a cyber stalker. But Dick itches, feeling like he's letting them down, like he _should_ be out there, just in case. At this point, the bruises are starting to fade and, while he's nowhere near healed otherwise, he can move well enough to cover up any lingering pain. He's been out before any halfway responsible doctor would give him the green light plenty of times in the past. It's not a big deal, and he'll go stir crazy sitting around at home with nothing to do anyway.

He leaves the computer on, and with it the Bat version of a police scanner. _Just in case._ And later in the evening, when a call for assistance comes through the network – hostage situation at a mall, multiple suspects, some of them seen yielding weapons that look suspiciously alien in nature – Dick responds, affirms that he'll be there as soon as possible. Alfred hesitates to confirm just long enough that it's noticeable, likely a bit worried that Dick's been bowing out after an injury in the first place, worried that he'd taken himself out of the rotation for a week but couldn't even sit on his hands for a full forty-eight hours. But he doesn't ask him whether he's sure, maybe a few more days out of the field would be wise? Talking any of them into proper convalescence tends to be a losing battle, and if anyone knows that, it's Alfred.

Jason seems to be less aware of that fact; or, more precisely, that it applies to anyone other than him. He steps into Dick's path as he rises from the couch.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks, frowning.

“My job,” Dick says and pushes past him.

Eyes wandering up and down Dick's body, like he's cataloging all the places where Dick's still hurt, fading bruises and healing cuts and those other injuries that can't be seen, Jason emphatically shakes his head. “It's too soon. You're gonna – “

He doesn't finish that sentence, averting his gaze with a wince. 

“I've been in the field with worse,” Dick points out. “And I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. I don't need a chaperon and you can't tell me not to go out there.”

Jason screws his eyes shut, rubbing at his temple, and Dick can practically watch him bite down on the swirl of worry and anger that's pitching itself up inside of him. “Fine,” he says, setting his jaw. “But you can't tell me not to come with.”

The thought is tempting, the knowledge that Jason would be there to cover for him if necessary, and that's exactly why Dick won't accept it. They haven't spent much apart since it happened. Hell, they've hardly been alone for more than an hour since then. Jason has been around every night, every day, and it's _enough_. Time to quit using him as a constant crutch.

“No,” Dick says, with as much finality as he can infuse into it; he's not going to argue over this much longer. “I can't _tell_ you to do anything. But I can _ask_ you to let me do this alone.”

It's not actually a request, and from the way Jason's spine snaps up a little straighter, frown deepening, that came through loud and clear. Dick expects him to keep arguing for the hell of it, proving a point, but instead he deflates.

“Fine. I'll go and get some clothes from my place, and after that, I'll wait for you here?” he asks, and some of the showy, stubborn belligerence bleeds out of his stance and expression in the space of a blink. If they hadn't discussed hours prior, Dick might be wondering if there's another unasked question behind that; if he’s really asking whether he might get thrown out after all, wore out his welcome by arguing, getting insistent.

Dick reaches for his hand, threading their fingers together, and squeezes. “Yeah. Sure. I just need to do this on my own, okay?”

By the way of an answer, Jason steps out of his way, disentangling their fingers. He doesn't follow when Dick goes to change, and remains in civies when Dick climbs out of the window, suited up, as ready to join the fray as he's going to get these days.

 

***

 

His journey across the rooftops is as easy and calming as it's ever been. Even the remaining ache in his body is soon forgotten; he shoots out line after line, cutting through the air, stretching and tugging his legs, folding and unfolding without conscious thought.

The weight of what he's doing doesn't hit him until he's close enough to the mall that he can make out the others in their positions. Tim and Steph, Bruce and Damian, Cass. He meets Bruce's eyes across the plaza when he lands, and for a moment he's convinced, absolutely certain, that Bruce is going to take one look at him and _know_. That's bullshit, of course; Dick had the same fear when he started seeing Jason, and Bruce doesn't seem to have figured that one out either. He's not actually all-knowing; it just seems that way sometimes. But Dick feels like what happened is painted across his forehead, like everyone who's known him long enough and has learned to read him will see a big, glaring scarlet letter.

Bruce greets him over the comms, the few seconds delay between seeing his lips move and hearing the words making it a little jarring. He sounds relieved, if anything, to have him back in the fold. The twinge of emotion is miniscule and Dick's only catching it because he grew up listening to every slight change in Bruce's demeanor, drinking in every sign of affection, but it's there.

The next words are orders, a position for him to take, a target to look out for. Muscle memory and instinct play their part to set Dick on autopilot, acting before he can think, and he's doing okay right until he's following his mark through a dark alleyway a little while later. He hangs back, remaining more of a threat in the periphery than a real chase, until the guy tires visibly, slowing down, his gait becoming sluggish. Then Dick speeds up himself with a quick succession of swings and catches him mid-flight in the middle of the street, pinning him to the back wall of a restaurant.

“Got you,” he says, the grin he accompanies that with is real and effortless. Adrenaline is surging through his veins, and he's soaring like an addict on the first shot in weeks. He pins the guy's wrists together, ready to put him in cuffs and march him to the cops, when the light of the streetlamp from the intersection a few feet away hits the metal a certain way, glinting off it, and Dick's blood runs cold. He pulls himself together only seconds later, but that small distraction allows his charge to yank an arm free and grip Dick's wrist, hard enough that the bones are grinding together, and the next flashback hits him full frontal.

His muscles lock up with fear. The street dissolves around him, and he feels fingertips ghost over his skin in a mockery of affection, across his shoulder blades, down his back, past his hips. The lacerations on his wrists, despite having begun to scab over by now, burn as if they're hours old and not several days.

He comes back to himself hearing an anguished yelp, and at first he thinks the noise, undignified and panicky, was his own. It takes a few more moments for his situational awareness to come back online and register a third presence. Remembered panic turns into real unease before he whirls around and stares directly at Jason's mask.

“You with me?” Jason's voice is low, almost a whisper, laced with concern.

Dick merely nods.

“Good.” He yanks at their target's arms, now cuffed, a bit harder than necessary. “You had me worried there for a second.”

It's louder, his tone less private, much closer to regular comm banter, and Dick appreciates his willingness to keep up the pretense that this is nothing out of the ordinary. He does bristle, though, at the fact that Jason showed up in the first place, but he postpones that argument until after they've frog-marched their catch to the police and said their goodbyes.

Jason preempts any incoming accusations before they're even all the way off the scene. 

“I didn't show up for you,” he says, just as soon as they're out of ear shot from anyone else. “Not intentionally. Al called me in too. And then Tim pointed out he lost track of you when you followed one of them into an alleyway, said you weren't reacting to his hails, and I put two and two together.” He cocks his head. “Figured it'd be better if I found you, rather than anyone who'd ask questions you wouldn't want to answer.”

Dick grimaces at the thought and swallows down the sermon about hovering and disrespecting his autonomy he had already laid out in his head. Half of that would have been for his own benefit anyway; skipping over his embarrassment at _needing_ a rescue to begin with.

“It won't last forever,” Jason adds, his voice tentative, like he's not sure whether he's out of line or if he should have said anything else at all. “Give yourself a little more time.”

Then he zips out first, and Dick is about to catch up just so he can chew him out for not having any idea what it's like, what does he know, when he thinks about clowns and crowbars and ancient pits. Might not be the exact same thing, but hey. Maybe Jason _does_ know what he's talking about, at least well enough to bridge the gap.

 

***

 

Dick can't wind down that night. They both go to bed shortly after they get back to Dick's apartment, but he can't get is mind to shut the hell up and let him nod off to find some rest. The lingering fear that's sitting on his back isn't so much about the flashback; it's about worrying that they'll happen again and again, robbing him of the ability to go out and be useful. He's a liability like this, if he can't control his reactions. Next time, someone could get hurt.

Sunlight's already beginning to filter through the blinds when he throws the sheets aside and gets out of bed. He doesn't need to switch on the bedside lamp to gather some clothes, can see them well enough, his own strewn around the bed and Jason's folded onto the dresser. At first he bends to dig around for yesterday's t-shirt, but then he sees the edges of Jason's favorite hoodie – a red one, well-worn, because Jason is nothing if not consistently ridiculous – and pulls that on instead. It smells like him, and it's slightly too big, so only Dick's fingers are sticking out of the arms and it covers his ass well enough that he'll be able to sit on it and won't have to pull on pants.

He gives Jason's sleeping form, still tangled in the sheets, one last look and then pads into the computer room to boot up the machine. He's got a reason for coming in here, but he hesitates, reconsiders once he's drawn up the Wayne Enterprises employee files. Maybe he shouldn't be doing this alone, maybe –

No. Nonsense. He can look at a damn photo on his own. Dick types Vaughn's name in the search bar and pulls his head shot up with a few clicks. Then he leans back, legs drawn up onto the seat of the desk chair, and stares at the image in silence.

He's not entirely sure what he wants to achieve here. Some sort of shock therapy, enduring the sight even though his insides are starting to tangle themselves into painful knots, heart jack-hammering in his chest. For good measure, he reminds himself that Vaughn is still out there, for now, free to roam about as he pleases while the GCPD waits for the DNA results. Could be that it's going to get better, then, after they put him behind bars and the implicit threat of running into him on the street or at the company is gone. But, strangely, that's not what Dick fears. The panic earlier wasn't reasonable or rational; logic wouldn't make it go away, and he can't summon it like this to teach himself how to withstand it.

Dick's gaze wanders to the summarized CW underneath the picture. The work history is a little erratic, but that's nothing unusual these days; a series of paid and unpaid internships at the larger, top-tier companies in Gotham and Metropolis, few of them longer than a couple of months. And there's a thought; Dick's been seeing him in meetings for a while. Another click, and yeah, sure enough: Vaughn doesn't work for Wayne Enterprises anymore. His internship there ended the week of the abduction. Dick pulls up the police reports for the other victims, and now that he knows what to look for, there's a clear pattern. Each of them disappeared on the tail end of Vaughn's stay at the company of the family in question. Realizing that doesn't have much merit for him now; he'll have to trust that the police will work that out as well, circumstantial evidence to strengthen a case that should already be stable enough with the DNA match.

He closes the windows one after another and powers the computer down. He still isn't tired, but he wants to go back to the simple comfort of a familiar body curled around his, to the knowledge that he doesn't have to face any of this alone and can allow himself to let go, at least through the night.

Jason's sitting up in bed when Dick returns to the bedroom, yawning wide, and he smiles when his eyes fall to the hoodie drawn closely around Dick's torso, enveloping him.

“Suits you,” he says, voice sleep-slurred, and lies back down, throwing the sheets aside so Dick can climb in next to him.

“Bullshit,” Dick says while shedding the hoodie, having it join the pile of clothes already gathered, and curls into the warm spot by Jason's side. “That thing's like two sizes too large, I'm swimming in it.”

Jason hums. “Yeah. Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are getting two chapters today, because while I could just so bring myself to break this up for the sake of readability, I do think these two chapters contain a certain momentum and are better read together. So, stand by. Chapter 6 will follow in just a few minutes.


	6. Chapter 6

After two days of little else than waiting and sitting around, Dick's bored enough to start tidying up off his own account. Jason has kept the kitchen in a state he can live with – his words, not Dick's – but he hasn't touched the rest, and he does a bonafide double take when Dick marches past him with a stack of comics under one arm and holding a full wastebasket with the other.

“If it weren't in poor taste right now, I'd ask what might have possessed you,” Jason says, his eyes following Dick around the room. He's half-dressed, wearing jeans and that ever-present unzipped red hoodie and nothing underneath. On his frame it sits just right, doesn't swallow him up like it does with Dick. 

Dick takes the time to stop in his tracks, half-turns, and faux-glare at him over his shoulder while he takes in the view. “We arrived at the point where I don't know what else to do with myself. Really not funny.” Then he rolls his eyes and smiles, because Jason's face is about to fall, and yeah, hangman's humor might really be something they should shelve for a couple more weeks. “Hey. I _am_ joking. It's fine.”

The smile Jason shoots back hangs midway between genuine and contrite, with a touch of annoyance. Dick can relate to the latter; over the last couple of months, they'd begun to get quite comfortable with each other, learn one another's moods and tells and quirks. Now there's this extra layer to everything that takes things that were previously looted out and turns them into uncharted territory all over again. Proximity and touch. Nudity, to a point. Those are obvious. But also things much more random, like this, jokes made at their own or the other's expense, small and trivial but given more weight when they suddenly spin into something awkward.

And it seems they're not off the ice yet, because Jason shifts his stance and rubs his palms on his jeans. “I have a, uh, thing later. Someone just called and I – I actually don't think you want the details.” He shrugs. “Do you mind me going?”

Dick lifts an eyebrow. “I'm gonna pretend you didn't just ask me that.”

“I mean,” Jason says, sighing, already on the edge to getting exasperated. “That I don't want to go if you don't want to be alone. I'm not saying you _can't_ be on your own. No need to take offense.”

They're a couple sharp words from an argument, and Dick decides to be the bigger person. Paddle back, resist the scathing reminder that he's got Jason beat by years of experience in the field and can do without his overbearing coddling, thank you very much. But Jason means well, he's just worried, and yeah. Time to show that he is, indeed, the older sibling in the room. Figuratively, given the fact that they've been fucking for a while and that label only applies in certain contexts.

“I know.” He rearranges the comics, the top few sliding out of his grip, unbalancing the whole stack. “But yeah, go. And yes, please keep the details to yourself.”

Jason exhales and holds out his hands. “Where do you want those? I can put them away.”

“There's a couple empty shelves in the wall unit behind the couch,” Dick says, raising his arm so Jason can rescue the comics, and heads to the kitchen with the wastebasket. “See if you can fit them in there.”

They both putter around in silence for a few minutes, and then Jason appears in the kitchen, waving around a picture frame. Dick looks up, squints at the photo, and recognizes it as an officially family picture from a Wayne-hosted gala years ago. Jason must have been fifteen at the time, a couple months before he ran off and died. Dick himself had just turned nineteen.

“Do you recall how we practiced tango for weeks, leading up to that gala?” Jason asks, the corners of his mouth curving up into an up-to-no-good grin. “You wanted to impress Babs, and she turned up with the son of one of Gordon's cop friends, a blind date, causing the two of you to pine after each other from across the room yet again.”

Dick grimaces. He does recall. Society events aren't his forte at the best of times, and having his romantic intentions thwarted didn't improve the experience either. But the practicing had been fun, at least, the most relaxed Jason and he had ever been around each other, before everything went to shit. “You told me that dancing was one of the few good things your mom passed on to you before she died.”

“And I remember wondering how you could be capable of moving through the air with so much grace, while being completely incapable of keeping to a rhythm with both feet on the ground.” The grin picks up a notch, now openly mocking. “You still suck at that, by the way.”

“I do not,” Dick says, huffing.

“You do too.” Jason leans against the counter, watching Dick empty the contents of the wastebasket down the chute. “I saw you at the gala last spring and that was pitiful. You're an embarrassment. Don't ever tell anyone I taught you that.”

“I'll prove it,” Dick offers, unfolding to his full height again – which, yeah, still an inch shorter than Jason, but that's not the point. He saunters past him into the living room, picks up his cell phone and draws up a streaming app. Some searching, and he's got the first notes of _Por una Cabeza_ wafting through the room, the string arrangement sounding tinny on the phone speakers.

Jason winces and glowers at the small device, as if offended on behalf of such poor treatment of the music he remembers from his childhood. But he does accept the hand Dick offers and arranges them into a starting position. He holds Dick's gaze and mouths a quick countdown, and then they're off. The whole thing doesn't have much to do with Tango and proves Jason's position more than it does Dick's, any steps they get right are entirely due to his direction, but it's fun. The most fun Dick's had in days. It feels longer ago than that; it feels like a different life. But he revels in the moment, steps on Jason's feet on purpose at least twice, throws his head back on a laugh when that earns him a glare.

“Wasn't the whole point of this exercise,” Jason grumbles. He corrects their trajectory so they don't end up toppling over the coffee table. That means they lose pace of the music, and he slows them down, counting again, before he continues. “Wasn't the point here to prove to me that you _can_ dance?”

“I think that's a lost cause,” Dick shoots back. He drags his feet, making himself a dead weight in Jason's arms until he gives up and they both come to a halt. “You're right. I suck at this.”

Jason lifts an eyebrow, finally smirking too. “Can I have that in writing?”

“No way in hell,” Dick says, grinning back at him. On a whim, he hauls Jason close, using the hand that's threaded in with his. Standing less than an inch apart, he glances down, watches the heavy rise and fall of Jason's chest, even more of it visible now that the open hoodie has slid down his shoulders a little and fallen to the sides.

Jason's the one who initiates the kiss. He's careful about it, does everything right: leans in slowly to announce his intentions, doesn't proceed until Dick's given him a small nod. There's still a brief moment of fear when he takes another step closer so they're flush against each other and places both hands on Dick's hips, but Dick pushes it aside. He wants this. He wants to not be afraid. He never stopped wanting _Jason_ , current complications notwithstanding.

Despite having been given permission, Jason hesitates when he's close enough that Dick can feel his breath ghost over his face, can smell him, almost taste him already. He's scared too, Dick assumes, scared of hurting him or being rejected at the last moment, and to disabuse him of both those ideas, Dick crosses the remaining distance and brings their lips together himself. Kissing, he finds, he can deal with. The physical proximity that comes with it is another matter, but the sheer act doesn't carry any bad memories. Vaughn didn't kiss him. Neither did Jason while he was playing pretend. Not really. Not like this.

He wraps both hands around Jason's waist and lets them wander underneath the hoodie, resting there, just to enjoy the sensation of bare, warm skin underneath his palms as they kiss. After a minute or so, both of them starting to get lost in it, Dick's mind drifting, he feels himself growing hard. The relief at that still working as usual is quickly overtaken by being uncomfortable and vaguely, aimlessly afraid, and damn near devastation at realizing _that_. But there's no way around it; his mind supplies him with flashes of an unwanted hand on him, his body reacting regardless, mixing a twisted kind of purely physical arousal into the fear and the pain. Vaughn's hand. Jason's hand. Either of them, both of them, and he _can't_.

“That's enough. Stop. Enough.” He breaks the kiss, and the guilt that he sees washing over Jason's face when he opens his eyes makes him step back and turn around.

He hurries back into the kitchen just to stand around uselessly, until he sees a couple of mugs on the drying rack and decides that putting on a pot of coffee is as good a distraction as any. Jason doesn't chase him. He stays rooted to the spot for a moment, then heads for the bedroom, starting to shed clothes on the way, and murmurs something about having to get going soon anyway. It takes him longer to reemerge than a change of clothes would account for; hiding himself from sight, giving Dick time to calm down on his own.

By the time he finally walks into the kitchen, clad in half his getup, body armor and track pants, Dick's already nursing his third cup of coffee. That's going to come around on him later, but for now it's something to keep him occupied, keep his hands busy.

Jason helps himself to a mug of his own from the cupboard and pours himself some coffee, then sits down across from Dick, both hands wrapped around the warm ceramic and staring at the liquid inside it, as if he holds all the answers and will reveal them to him if he just keeps paying attention for long enough.

“Are you mad at me?” He asks, voice low, uncharacteristically tentative, worried.

Dick shakes his head. Wants to be surprised, but finds he isn't. He must be so confusing to deal with, sending such mixed signals. He can't even make heads and tails of it himself these past few days. “What for?”

“For the kiss just now,” Jason explains. He looks up and sort of winces, as if there's more to that question but he can't bring himself to say it. Which is smart of him, because the last thing Dick wants is for him to apologize again. “I dunno.”

“The kiss came from me just as much as it came from you,” Dick says, giving him a – hopefully – reassuring smile. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

Jason frowns, then, and yeah, he probably should have known better than expecting that one to land. And even while he means it, there's a small, nagging voice in the back of his head that insinuates that Jason _shouldn't_ accept his absolution. That holds up snapshots to back that up: Jason holding him down, chaining him, jerking him off in the basement. And then there's a slightly smaller voice that insists Dick might have manipulated him into these things, but Jason still _did_ them.

Dick sighs and stands, emptying the rest of the coffee into the sink. “I'm mad at myself,” he says, watching it disappear down the drain. “I don't _know_ how to feel, what to do.”

Behind him, Jason rises to his feet; Dick can hear the chair being pushed back, his footsteps on the linoleum. But he doesn't cross the distance, hovering somewhere in Dick's periphery. “Don't be. You want to go back to normal. That's understandable. And like I said: give yourself more time. It's only been a few days. You'll be okay.”

“No,” Dick says, louder than he meant to. “I should be better at this. We all deal with tons of bad shit, right? Why is this different?”

Jason's hands land on his shoulders, after all, and Dick can't quite suppress a shudder. In response, he works his thumbs into Dick's neck, massaging gently, and turns him, waits until Dick looks up and meets his eyes. “Don't you dare think you don't have a right to the way you feel. There is no _should_. You didn't just receive a beating. That piece of shit took something intimate and private and turned it against you, turned it into pain. You're fucking _human_. You're allowed to take a while to get over that.” He pauses and lets go, takes a step back. “And I'll be here with you, if that's what you want, for however long and in whichever way you need.”

That's the second time he's making an offer like that, with almost exactly the same words. _Whatever you need._ And Dick's asking himself why he keeps repeating it, whether he's trying to make amends with every apology, every renewed vow to stick around, out of a desire to clear a debt he assumes springs from his agreement that night. He doesn't actually buy that, though; it can't be easy being here, constantly walking on eggshells, but Dick wouldn't have Jason down as the kind of repentant sinner that uses self-flagellation to assuage his guilt. 

There's another reason why he might want to stay. Dick's not sure he wants to contemplate that option – it'd make everything so much more complicated. It'd mean there's more of a reason to get through this together, more on the line than just a good fuck every other week. And he can't think about that right now, can't add another layer to the mess inside his head.

He cuts his eyes away and turns on the faucet, rinsing the now empty mug. He draws that out, only turns the water off when he's heard Jason's footsteps diverging from the kitchen. He still doesn't move a muscle when Jason's voice comes from the front door, accompanied by the click of the door handle being pushed down.

“I'll be back in a few hours,” Jason says, and then the door falls closed behind him. 

 

***

 

Dick finishes tidying his place, carries armfuls of clothes from one room to another, fills the dishwasher and the washing machine both. He takes one look into the cupboard where he's hoarding sparsely used cleaning agents, but decides that'd be overdoing it. Another time, maybe. He's not quite desperate enough to don the marigolds.

He does notice that he's gotten a bit hungry, which comes with the realization that he'll have to do a grocery run sometime in the near future; he's out of milk _and_ cereal, and his stash of convenience food his pitiful. He debates ordering in, but opening the door to a stranger while he's alone is a weirdly threatening idea. Nothing he'd ever have spared a thought about before, and it sends a hot flash of embarrassment up his neck. Maybe that's what he should do though, push through the fear, but... His address is public. Vaughn hasn't been arrested yet. It's improbable and stupid, yet he can't bring himself to ignore the possibility. Can't get past the panic that’s sitting in his bones all the time now, ready to flare and overtake him.

In the end, he snags a mango from a fruit bowl on the counter, kept mostly as a reminder that he relies on his body and has to feed it the good stuff now and then. He sets it on a plate and pulls open the cutlery drawer to get a knife, doesn't think much of it until he glances down at the assorted cooking knifes sitting in a section of the drawer when he's about to push it closed. His grip on the knife he's gotten out tightens. His breathing spins out of control before he quite realizes what's going on, what's happening to him. He's dropping the knife, hearing it clatter to the floor, and sags down to his knees. His eyes are open, but he doesn't see the kitchen anymore. He sees the basement.

 _He sees the cold and dirty ground, sees Vaughn approaching him, keys to the handcuffs dangling from his hands. And that's not a good thing. They've done that before. He scoots back against the wall in a futile attempt to escape, to stall, and his stomach cramps painfully when Vaughn only grins, like he's pleased, like this is all terribly entertaining to him. The handcuffs are removed and then comes a command, impossible to ignore or withstand even though his muscles want to go rigid with panic and apprehension of fresh pain._ Lose the shirt and go to the mattress. Lie down on your back. Spread your legs. No, wider, let me see you. There's no point in hiding anymore, is there? _Once Dick obeyed, because that's his only choice and he can't not, still doesn't understand why but it's physically impossible, Vaughn kneels in front of him. He's still grinning with sick excitement. He produces that damn knife from the inside pocket of his jacket and uses it to trace a line from the soft flesh on Dick's belly button all the way down towards the base of his limp cock. There's not enough pressure for the blade to ever pierce skin, but that's not the point, and he keeps it there while his other hand –_

The sounds of a key turning in the lock of the front door tears Dick out of the memory, and he scrambles to his feet, heart beating a wild staccato rhythm in his chest. He blinks, lashes sticking together as if they're wet, and touches the skin underneath his eyes, finds it moist. He wipes the tears away with the back of his hand, picks up the knife and throws it into the sink.

Jason calls his name from the hallway, and Dick stands frozen against the kitchen counter, trying to pull himself together enough that, once he marches into the living room to greet him, he'll appear normal. Probably a losing battle, but that's no reason not to attempt it. 

He pushes himself off the counter and aims for casual indifference when he saunters towards Jason. Stops right in front of him and leans in for a brief kiss by the way of hello, Jason's hand curling around his as they part. It's still strange sometimes, this level of unheeded intimacy, and right now Dick's skin is tingling with the remnants of the memory of unwanted touch.

He retracts his hand.

Jason steps away, and it takes one look for him to _see_ , alarm already obvious in his expression before he opens his mouth to ask, “What's wrong? Did something happen?”

“Nothing, I just... nothing.” Dick shakes his head and sends him a pleading look. _Please don't ask. Drop it. Don't make me explain._

And turns out there's no need to explain, because Jason tilts his head to the side, frowning. “Flashback?”

Dick bites his lip, nods.

Jason nods back, understanding, then smiles a little and holds up a greasy paper bag. “I brought takeout.”

Stupidly grateful for the instant change in topic, Dick gestures for the bag and peers inside, finding several boxes of Chinese fast food. “How oddly domestic.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Jason says with a downright theatrical eye roll. “Next time I'll just take care of myself on the way and leave you hanging.”

 

***

 

They eat in front of the TV, sitting with their legs folded underneath themselves on opposite ends of the couch, and after, Dick takes the half-empty boxes and stores them in the fridge. On the way out, he stares at the spot where he went to his knees earlier, and it's a mistake, brings back snapshots of the memory. It takes all his self-discipline to not just cry out in frustration, at the unfairness of his own mind working against him. He sets his jaw and stays in the kitchen on purpose, takes the knife out of the sink and rinses it, dries it, puts it back in the drawer.

By the time he returns to the living room, he's too jittery to sit back down, even though Jason ask him to twice, watches him with growing concern. Dick resists the temptation to snap at him, tell him to mind his own business.

Eventually Jason sighs, and his head disappears from view as he lowers himself down, reclining. “You're pacing,” he says. “Do me a favor and come over here.”

Dick's knee-jerk reaction is to flip him off and keep walking circles around the living room anyway. But he does like to think he's more mature than that, doesn't run entirely on spite. He sighs and rounds the couch.

“Happy now?” he asks, standing there, staring own at Jason, who stares back at him in a way that makes Dick feel like he's transparent, laid bare; he's too aware of the hot nervous blush still coloring his cheeks, wonders whether his eyes are still red.

“Almost.” Jason reaches out and touches Dick's wrist with his index and middle finger, a signal and a test, and only then wraps his hand around it, tugging cautiously. “Lie down with me? If that's okay?”

About the last thing Dick wants right now is to be still, rooted to any one spot, and he's too on edge to be forgiving. But he's probably telegraphing his nerves and distress with bright red neon signs. And for better or worse, Jason's stubborn, he'll keep trying to help, so Dick figures he might as well give in now and shorten the process. He's not sure he's got the spoons for a match on who's got the thicker skull right now.

He nods, and Jason shifts, making room for him between the backrest and his own body. Climbing over him takes some maneuvering, but eventually Dick's tugged in against him, both hands braced against his chest, head on his shoulder. Jason's arm comes up behind him and he rests his hand on the small of Dick's back, and, when he doesn't meet any protests, starts stroking it up and down. There's nothing demanding or sexual in the movements; they're soothing, light pets, touch for the sake of connection and comfort. 

“Close your eyes,” he says. Dick shoots him a look. Jason holds it, unimpressed, and with a put-upon sigh, Dick does as instructed. “Okay, good. Now inhale, hold it for the next five heartbeats. Then hold your breath for the next seven, and exhale slowly over another nine.”

“Oh, screw this. And screw you.” Dick blinks his eyes open and makes to push himself up. “I'm fine. You're overreacting.”

Still without any kind of force, the hand on Dick's back stills just below his shoulder blades. Jason's not holding him down; it's a suggestion, nothing more, and that makes it bearable. “Maybe I am. But there's no harm in trying, right? It might help, and your carpet will thank you.”

“So it's my goddamn carpet you're worried about.” Dick rolls his eyes, but he stays in place. “Where did you pick that up anyway? When?”

“Does it matter?” Jason says, and his hand returns to its slow caress up and down the length of Dick's torso. “Now quit sassing me and do it.”

After getting in one last glare, Dick screws his eyes shut again and inhales. He counts, and he exhales. He repeats it, and then repeats it once more. He loses track at first, mind swirling too hard to concentrate, but it gets easier with each repetition. The simple act of concentrating while he listens to his own body, follows its signs, its rhythm, empties his head, forgets to be afraid, until that exercise is all there is. _In, five. Hold, seven. Exhale, nine._

“Okay,” he says, breathing out one last time. “Honestly, where did you learn that?”

Once again, Jason's hand pauses, this time on Dick's hip. “One of Talia's physicians. I don't remember too much from the early days, before the pit, when my brain was little more than scrambled eggs. But I remember that, and I remember the feeling when the rest of the world fades away and all that remains are the numbers, over and over again. You looked like you could use that.”

Thanking him would be too much of an admission, would give too much away, and Dick keeps quiet. He does burrow deeper into the embrace, eyes still pressed shut. He doesn't fall asleep, but he allows the faint noise from the TV and the mingled rhythms of Jason's breathing and his own to lull him, keep his brain working on low volume for a while longer.

Jason's hand moves to his neck, carding his fingers through the once-again-too-long hair there. “Can I ask you for something?”

Not opening his eyes, Dick mutters, “What?”

“Don't pretend. Not with me.” His hand stills, thumb rubbing at the persistent tension in Dick's neck. “The least I can do for you is let you just... be sad when you need to. Be angry when you need that. What I'm saying is, don't hide your tears when you feel like crying. Yell at me when you feel like you need to yell at _someone_. Me being here won't do you any good if it means you're acting like everything's normal.”

“Oh,” Dick huffs. “And you know so much about how I feel?”

“No.” Jason sighs back at him. "I won't claim that I know, or understand what you've been through during those two days. I don't. I can't. But I do know what it's like when your brain gives you a replay of your own personal horror show every time you close your eyes. Hell, sometimes even while they're still open. And I want you to remind yourself that it gets better. It never goes away, we both know that, but it'll become easier. Alright? You'll be fine. You, of all people, can ride this out and make it to the other side with all your marbles intact."

And Dick wants to keep arguing that Jason doesn't actually _know_ shit, couldn't even imagine, but the thing is, he's not wrong. What he's describing sounds familiar in a way that stems from personal experience, not mere empathy. Dick thinks back to the roof the other day, how he'd already suspected that they might have more in common, now, than Dick ever expected. More than they all share, from Bruce to Damian.

That's why he doesn't snap at him again. He finally blinks his eyes open and angles his head up to meet his eyes. "I never thought you'd have so many inspirational speeches in you."

"Told you, I learned from the best,” Jason says and goddamn _ruffles_ his hair, causing him to rear up with an indignant squeak. “And if you don't think I'm stubborn enough to keep telling you all that as many times as it takes to make it stick, you got another thing coming.”

Dick pats his hair down – which was in disarray in the first place, so it's mostly for show – before he settles back into his spot between Jason's body and the backrest. “What did you see? What was it your brain had on replay?”

Jason's chest expands with a deep breath, and he hesitates for long enough that Dick thinks he won't get an answer. But he does, and the way his eyes glaze over with remembered pain kills any doubts Dick had that he doesn't exactly know what he's talking about. “Several things. That stupid painted face as the crowbar comes down. I heard my mom screaming sometimes. The first seconds of agony from the explosion before everything went dark.”

He tries to look away, then, but Dick reaches up to hold his face in place, keeping eye contact, and presses a quick, fleeting kiss to his lips. “Thank you.”

 

***

 

Sometime the next afternoon, Dick runs out of coffee grinds. He pulls the can open and finds little more than a meager spoonful, and he walks back into the living room with the can still in hand, waving it around.

“We're going out,” he declares, the decision made on a whim. Because he won't be alone. Because Gotham is a large fucking city and there's plenty people in it who want him harm, and he's never once been afraid of moving through it regardless. Because he's going out of his head within these four walls too. “Coffee and pastries, and then some grocery shopping.”

Jason turns on the couch and squints at him, then at the can in his hand, then scans the room at large, like he's trying to do the math here but can't come up with all the numbers required. “We are? You sure?”

“Yes.” Dick nods. “I'm out of coffee _and_ breakfast food, and it's not like...” He pauses, thinking back to their conversation the other day and decides against making light of the situation, talking like there's no problem with something as ordinary as a grocery run. “Yesterday I sat crying in my own kitchen because I got scared of the knife I was going to use to cut up some fruit, so hey. Might as well step out, then, right?"

Already getting to his feet, Jason's smiling a little, almost proudly, and it's a bit of a gut punch, seeing that reaction to such a small gesture of trust, of openness. Dick smiles back, and then beats it to the bedroom to change.

They don't go far; there's a cafe about three blocks from his place that he likes, not too busy but the cakes and pastries are great and the coffee is even better, and they settle there before moving on to the nearest Wal-Mart. A corner booth with view of the door, the most ideal vantage place for keeping an eye on everyone that enters the room has to offer. That's still paranoia, it's still giving in, but it's a concession Dick can justify to himself.

They each order coffee – Dick's decidedly fancier than Jason's, which earns him a side-eye – and a plate of pastries, and mostly people-watch. The silence isn't awkward, though. Every once in a while Dick will elbow Jason to point out a woman giggling with her friend or the guy at the counter who's patiently counting out change for a couple kids of roughly ten, so they can give it to the waitress, and Jason will look but mostly say nothing. It's normal and mundane, and actually kind a boring, and yet, when Jason asks him if he wants to leave, Dick shakes his head.

“Let's stay a little longer,” he says, glancing at his nearly empty cup, then peeks at Jason's, which is equally depleted, and points. “Get these topped up?”

Jason eyes him, like he can't quite make sense of what it is Dick's getting from sitting around in a cafe with nothing much to do, but he nods. “Sure. I'll go.”

With that, he rises to get said refill, and he's halfway out of the booth when Dick's gaze wanders to the TV in the corner and the whole world freezes around him.

Vaughn's arrest is but a footnote in the news update, they're not even showing a video, only a photo. The names of the victims are still withheld, but apparently GCPD can't quite keep from patting itself on the back for catching, as they put it, _a vicious and dangerous serial rapist pursuing elite targets_. The provided picture shows Vaughn while uniformed officers escort him from an office building Dick doesn't recognize. He's trying to cover himself by tugging his suit jacket over his head, and Dick finds him barely recognizable. It _is_ him, no doubt about that, but he looks so _normal_. Which they all do, at the end of the day, but it's different with him.

Eyes still glued to the screen, reading the running text underneath the photo, his hand shoots out to grab Jason by the wrist, holding him back. Jason turns immediately, eyes wide with worry, and Dick merely nods to the TV. He follows his line of sight just in time before they switch to the next arrest report. The picture is gone by the time he's sat back down, having threaded his fingers with Dick's and holding his hand in his lap, hidden under the table. Now the screen shows celebrity news, and yet Dick can't stop staring. His skin is prickling and there's a mess of emotions swirling in his stomach; he's acutely aware that he's in a public place, feels like everyone's eyes are on him even though it's more likely no one else noticed his reaction at all.

He cuts his gaze away from the TV with some effort, and glances over at Jason.

“They got him,” he whispers, less to Jason and more to himself. “He's in custody. They're going to indict him. He's going to jail.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, and his own voice is barely louder than Dick's own. “Yeah, he's going away. He's never going to hurt anyone else, ever again.”

What he doesn't say, what he knows better than saying, is that he's not going to hurt Dick again either. This one particular threat, running into him again basically anywhere, is off the table. And of course it's not that simple, there'll be a trial and there's still a chance that he'll get acquitted, there always is, but for now...

For now, he's gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. That's it for today's update now, though. XD And I'm afraid I won't be able to keep to weekly posting for the next chapter, because I need a break from this thing. Not a terribly long one -- I'm still itching to get this out -- but yes, stepping back for a little bit might be good for the fic too, plus, I have a charity fic to write I just got my smutswap assignment and I owe people porn and whump and... YEAH. Anyway. We'll be getting back to this soon, but don't expect an update for the next week or two, probably.
> 
> Oh, and also, thanks to beta-lactamase for picking both the dance and the song, and for agreeing with me on the partly latinx!Jason headcanon. Which you'll have to pry from my cold dead hands, and even then I might not let it go.


	7. Chapter 7

It's another fifteen minutes or so, sitting in that booth and staring at the TV that has long since moved on to other topics, before Jason nudges him. His other hand – the one that Dick isn't still clutching under the table like it's his only lifeline – curls around his hip for a moment, also out of sight, stroking gently. 

“We should go,” Jason says, low and under his breath, just for him to hear. “Back to your place?” 

The effort it takes him to detach his gaze from the TV screen is staggering, like trying to move his feet in thick, drying mud. It takes him far too long before he nods and scoots to the edge of the booth. He stands, waits for Jason to rise as well. When Jason tries to extract his hand, Dick holds on. With a huff that sounds more surprised than annoyed, Jason rubs his thumb over the back of Dick’s hand once, reassuring, and leads them both out of the cafe. 

Two blocks pass Dick by like he's playing a video game, not actually walking on his own, before the world starts to sharpen around him again. The fog in his head, making everything blurry and distant, recedes. He reminds himself that is a _good thing_. It's over. They got him. Their life can go back to normal now and there's no longer a reason to walk around in a daze, to run home and hide. 

He squeezes Jason's hand and stops, halting them both, causing Jason to turn and give him a quizzical look. 

“I don't wanna go home yet,” Dick declares, digging around for somewhere he wants to go. They went out grocery shopping, but that'll take ten minutes, and he wants something more challenging. Something like... “The old market hall, let's go there.” 

Jason's expression remains unchanged. “What the fuck do you want at a farmer's market? You can't even cook.” 

Looking up at him from under his lashes, Dick grins. “They have fruits and stuff, too, right? C'mon. We'll go get ourselves some apples and oranges.” 

With his face still set in a frown and clearly less than enthused by the prospect, Jason shrugs. Dick pulls at him to get them walking again, this time in the opposite direction. He lets go of Jason's hand once it's obvious he's following along, reminds himself that there's no more reason for crutches like that. 

The market is busy; it's a little past quitting time by now, lots of nine-to-fivers having a stroll between the stalls to get some fresh produce after work. They have to push past throngs of people to make it through some of the alley, and it sends an uneasy shiver up Dick's spine; being pressed up this close to strangers, caught in a crowd, a setting not unlike the after work rush that Vaughn took him from. But Vaughn isn't a problem anymore. There's no cause for fear. It's okay. _It's over._. Dick balls his hands into fists to keep from reaching for Jason and ignores the urge to glance back and make sure he's still sticking to his side. 

Their walk past the stalls is aimless at first; Dick stops for a few fruit vendors, not entirely sure what he wants. He gets a small bag of apples at one stall – it's what he said he'd come here for – and then his resolve fizzles out somewhat. He stands between the mass of people moving around him, most of them probably going off a predetermined shopping list. Every muscle in his body is tense, alarmed, ready for fight or flight on the light brush of someone's elbow, a plastic bag knocking past his legs. It's so laughable. This was a test, and enduring it is an achievement now. He shouldn't be proud of it; he should be embarrassed. 

“Do you mind,” Jason says from somewhere to his left, and the relief Dick feels at the confirmation that he _did_ keep close makes Dick's cheeks flush with another wave of feeling small, feeling absurd. “If I get us meat and some vegetables for dinner? I could cook, and we're already here, so.” 

“Sure,” Dick agrees. He turns to meet Jason's eyes and nods, mutely trails after him as he starts in the direction of a specific stall to start collecting his ingredients. He stands there, weighs and considers a selection of organic potatoes, his expression contemplative, making apparently serious decisions about the right strain. Up until now, Dick has been mostly unaware there _are_ different strains but hey, the cards at each tray inform him otherwise.

There's something peaceful in watching him, in his element with a topic that's so unexpected, doesn't seem to fit him. Making his purchase takes him a good five minutes, and the resulting chat with the vendor over his choice ends in a quick exchange over recipes and an approving nod. Dick continues to watch while he talks shop and barters at several more stalls, and it slowly occurs to him that he had no idea Jason could cook, let alone with fresh produce and from scratch. 

The collection of paper bags Jason carries around grows, and after the fourth stall he shoves a couple of them at Dick. He does so wordlessly with a glance back, a quick once-over and a smile. Dick accepts the bags, and stands back, finds himself overwhelmed by how little they actually know about each other despite the years they've been sort-of-family, how new this thing between them still is, and how much he might regret it if they would lose it because they can't navigate what happened to him. 

When Jason returns to unload another small paper bag at him, muttering about harvests and seasonal shortage, of all things, Dick reaches out, tries to grab his hand. He's too slow, and so he says Jason's name to recapture his attention. 

Jason stills, turns, and the immediate alarm on his face has Dick feeling sheltered and safe at the same time as it makes him feel vaguely embarrassed. He shouldn't rely on him so much, and Jason's first reaction to his voice shouldn't be worry. 

“I'm okay,” he says, shaking his head, smiling. “I just wanted to...” 

In lieu of trying to come up with words, describe what's going through his head, he holds out his hand. Jason looks down at it, then back at his face, but he steps closer so Dick can grab it and entwine their fingers again. So he can draw him closer and kiss him, the bags full of vegetables getting crushed between them and the angle a bit odd because of that. Around them, people are rushing by, chattering. Dick can hear a few complaints about PDA in the middle of a crowded street, about needing to get a room and a general absence of manners. 

He smiles into the kiss, which quickly turns into a pout when Jason draws back. “We're pissing people off,” he points out. His eyes flick downwards, to Dick's mouth, and he licks his lips. “And hey, not like I mind, but we should probably get a move on.” 

His expression isn't full of worry anymore, and neither is his tone; he looks at Dick with a warm and lopsided smile, fingers stroking through his hair. Dick searches his gaze and they stand there for another minute, being cussed out by random passersby while Dick tries not to think too deeply about the array of feelings reflected on Jason's face, in his eyes, and whether or not his own might mirror them; whether they're reciprocated. Mostly because, if he did think about it, the answer would probably be _yes_ and it might be time he'll decide what he wants to do about that. 

 

***

 

They spend the better part of an hour strolling around the market, buying Jason's ingredients and whichever fruits catch Dick's eye, loosely holding hands unless they have to let go in order to pay or rearrange the growing pile of paper bags. He expects Jason to back out of it at every turn, but he doesn't. He renews the contact as often as Dick does, and that makes Dick giddy with a strange whiff of domesticity. It's been awhile since he had this with someone: spending every waking minute together, living in the same space, learning all their odd little habits and still never quite getting enough of them. He surely never expected to have it with _Jason_. And maybe that's going to be the one good thing to come out of this whole mess – it got them, him and Jason, closer. Forged something in a trial of fire that would have taken much longer to grow on its own. 

Back home, once they unloaded the bags onto the counter and Jason's leaning against the edge, surveying his haul, Dick steps between his legs. He braces himself with his hands on either side of Jason's torso and leans in, waits for his body, his mind, to react to the proximity, and when nothing happens, leans in to mouth along Jason's jawline. Jason goes stock still for a few seconds, then lets out a bitten-off moan. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, and it sounds like the question costs him a good deal of restraint. Dick understands that; he also just _wants_ so much. 

But he decides there's no gain in waiting for the next blow, stretching his limits too far, too soon. Rather than that he collects his winnings and withdraws. 

“Living in the moment for now,” Dick says, stepping back, and glances up to meet Jason's eyes in the hope that he'll find sympathy there, not disappointment. 

Jason nods, clearing his throat, and does the telltale series of side-steps that means he's trying to rearrange a boner without actually _rearranging_ it. He's smiling again, a soft little thing that looks more at home on his face than Dick would have ever believed before they started seeing each other. 

“That's good.” He directs his attention towards emptying the bags filled to the brim with vegetables Dick doesn't think he ever even heard of, surely wouldn't know how to work up into something edible. “Now shush. Let me work. Leave my kitchen.” 

“Technically,” says Dick, planting his ass on the counter and peeking into one of the bags, “it's still my kitchen. Who taught you to cook anyway?” 

The squinted look Jason shoots him in reply is the very picture of indignation. “Really? You're really asking me that?” 

“Really.” Dick apes both his tone and his expression, getting a sort of childish glee out of Jason's instant exasperation. He takes this shit so seriously. It's adorable. “How am I supposed to know?” 

And Dick is somewhat certain that Jason knows he's being egged on; he's squinting harder now, and it's not like Dick's at all trying to hide his amusement. “Alfie taught me. As he did try to teach you, but from what I hear there are certain areas in which you were very much not top of the class.” 

Stated so blandly, it seems obvious, even though Dick doesn't have any recollection of ever seeing Jason and Alfred muck around the kitchen together. That must have fallen into the time he spent sulking at Titan's Tower. But it fits them both: say what you want about Jason, but he's always been an eager pupil, gathering whatever knowledge and skill he could get his hands on, absorbing it like a sponge. Much more of an opportunist than Dick's finely honed but rather specialized skill set. And Alfred... well it must have delighted him that one of them was just as willing to learn from him as they all were to learn from Bruce. 

Sliding off the counter, Dick waves Jason off, “I had to leave the rest of you some opportunities to gain a sense of achievement, right?” 

That is followed by Jason flipping him the bird; he's doing it around a stem of leek, and he got what looks like a cross between a carrot and a potato in the other hand. Dick laughs and saunters out of the kitchen, dragging his fingertips all the way over the counter with Jason's gaze following him, and then inelegantly flops down on the couch. 

After some idle and disinterested channel surfing, TV on low while the noise of chopping and rinsing wafts over from where Jason works, Dick feels his eyelids grow heavy. He figures there's no argument against a little nap; Jason won't have any compunctions to wake him if it's time to set the table or whatever, and he's got nothing better to do anyway. He stretches out more comfortably and closes his eyes, drifting – 

_He's in his bed, comforter drawn up to his chin. He's alone and watching the sun rise through his window, the sky glowing bright orange. The window is tilted and it's summer; it's been raining during the night, raindrops still clinging to the glass, but the heat of the day is already chasing the humidity away, and the smell of wet asphalt evaporating in the sun is strong enough that he can smell it from where his spot in the middle of the mattress. He should be sweating, cocooned as he is, but that dichotomy doesn't bother him. Breathing in deep, he shifts his weight onto his side so he's got a better view at the skyline, or what small sliver of it he can see from his bedroom. It's not exactly Wayne Tower, but that's okay. He likes that he's right in the center of Gotham, where the life pulses through it in real time, rather than gazing upon it from up high like a prince in a castle. There's someone ranting and wailing outside, probably drunk. Music carries over from somewhere, a classic tune, no lyrics._

_A noise from the living room has him sitting up, and he's vaguely aware that he's not supposed to be alone, he had company before he fell asleep, and so he's not too bothered when he identifies the sound as someone knocking over a chair. Throwing the comforter aside, he swings his legs out of bed, yawns, rubs his eyes, and goes to investigate._

_He's barely made it past the doorway of the bedroom when he _feels_ another person in the room. And this isn't right; they're not right, they're not supposed to be here. It makes the hair on his arms stand up, a cold shiver slithering along his skin despite the heat in the apartment. He shakes his head and takes another step, and suddenly someone's behind him, twisting his arms behind his back, immobilizing him. He tries to fight back, but his limbs ignore his commands, muscles barely giving a twitch. There's a knife at his throat, now, and his attacker's breath against his neck. Acid roils in his stomach. The temperature in the room has dropped by at least twenty degrees. He's freezing now, and he realizes that he's naked, goosebumps spreading all over his body. _

_The hand that had him restrained moves away, and yet he still can't seem to get his legs to obey him and run, or his arms to carry out a punch. He can't escape when that same hand is placed on his inner thigh, then inches further inwards, gripping his balls and flaccid cock._

_He blinks and he's back on the bed, above the comforter. It's night now and completely dark outside, not even the moon or a streetlamp providing any light. His arms are chained over his head and his legs are forcibly held open. Someone's moving between them, moving_ inside him _and it hurts, every thrust like a –_

“Wake up. Dickie, wake up, c'mon.” 

It takes Dick a few seconds to parse the voice as Jason's, longer still to regain any sense of his surroundings. He's distantly aware that he's on the couch, not on the bed. Somehow that's not much better, there's a bad memory there too, and Dick curls in on himself, trying to get away from him. 

"Shh, shh, relax, I'm sorry, it's just me, it's okay, I – " Jason soothes before he cuts himself off, as if suddenly understanding that _it's just me_ , in this case, might not help all that much. That this, too, is terribly familiar. 

More memories swim together and blend into each other, and Dick screws his eyes shut, forces himself to keep them sorted, recall that _Jason is safe_. But there's still the fear, the knowledge that he's in danger; worse yet, that he's utterly powerless to do anything about it and he remembers... “He's in here, he – “

“No,” Jason says, calm and definitive. “No, he's not. He's behind bars, remember? You had a nightmare, that's all.” He cups Dick's cheek, then brushes the hair out of his face, the touch so gentle and careful it's barely there. “He can't hurt you anymore, okay? I won't let him. He's never going to get near you again.” 

The words make sense, but they still don't manage to chase the panic away. Dick is aware he's hyperventilating; every other breath gets stuck in his chest and that only makes him more desperate to fill his lungs with air. They're starting to burn, like he's underwater, trying to remind himself why a deep inhale would be a bad idea. He's holding on to something, grip so strong his own fingers are starting to hurt with it, and he looks down, seeing that he's got his hand locked in a death grip around Jason's wrist. He lets go immediately, gaze flying back up to Jason's face. And oh, maybe he can do something about this. Maybe he can help him, make it so Dick can breathe again. 

Dick swallows a few times, throat closing up; he's still not getting enough air. Jason glances down his body to where his chest is heaving against the lack of oxygen. 

And Jason nods, using the hand he's been caressing Dicks face with to coax him into direct eye contact. “Look at me, alright? Breathe with me. In when I do, out when I do. It's not so hard, I promise, just watch and concentrate...” 

He keeps babbling at him but Dick ignores that in favor of doing as he's told; he watches Jason's mouth open a little around an intake of breath, watches him suck his lower lip in between his teeth on the exhale. Copies him and slowly, like it takes hours, ages, Dick succeeds in matching him. 

The burning sensation in his lungs ebbs down, his chest un-seizing, and Dick all but collapses against the backrest of the sofa, the strength sapped from his body. He peers up at Jason, face now burning with embarrassment and again – _damn_ , again – wet with tears he didn't notice shedding. The room around him takes proper shape. The TV is still going, although Jason blocks the view of most of it, squatting in front of him. But he can hear it, some mundane blather about traffic and weather and the like. He can smell food from the kitchen, and he wants to make a remark about that, wants to break the tension, but words are still so elusive. 

Jason lowers himself further, sitting down cross-legged on the floor by Dick's head. “You don't have to say anything.” 

They stay like that for maybe five minutes, before Dick remembers that Jason had been cooking. 

“Your stew, did you – “

“It's simmering,” Jason growls, running a hand down his face, and Dick wonders what exactly may have been so wrong about the question. Before he gets a chance to ask, Jason rises to his feet, pushes himself up using the armrest for purchase, “Don't you fucking worry about the food.” 

And Dick's too worn out to start an argument, just wriggles around until he's halfway comfortable and watches the interview about a movie he couldn't possible care less about that's now filling the TV screen. He feels hollow, like he's just lost another piece of himself, but can't quite put his finger on what that might mean either. 

 

***

 

The stew, when it's ready, does taste like home. Like the manor, late dinner, reheated three times during a single night while everyone trickles back in after patrol. That still doesn't mean Dick's got much of an appetite. He pokes his spoon through the soup plate balancing on his knees, eventually puts it aside with little of its contents gone. 

He settles back and watches Jason eat; he's not very enthusiastic either, but at least he's going to leave an empty plate. Dick's gaze falls to his arms, and the finger-shaped bruises blooming around his wrist. They're new, haven't been there before, and Dick immediately remembers what they're from. 

Leaning forward, he reaches out to brush is fingers over them. “I did that, didn't I? Shit, I'm sorry.” 

“It's nothing,” Jason says and pulls his hand away. The motion is disguised as an attempt to reposition the plate on his thighs, and quite well. If they hadn't all head substantive lessons on reading body language and tells, Dick may have missed the evasiveness in it. “Don't apologize. You didn't do it on purpose.”

But they all have those skills and he doesn't miss that. “What's wrong?”

Jason looks up at him, lips pinched together. Then he puts his plate away and shifts so he's facing Dick, and the way he's surveying him has something interrogative. “You mistook me for him. Earlier, when you first came back to yourself. You saw him.” 

Dick swallows a wince. There's no easy way to explain this; no way that won't leave a bad taste for both of them. “Yes and no. I mistook you for... well, you.” 

Comprehension sets in slowly, but Dick can see understanding spread on his face when Jason gets it: no matter what's between them now, there was a version of him that used to be out for blood; that aimed to strike fear into the people that once were closest to him. Successfully, for a while. And it's that version Dick saw when he was in the safe house, in the basement with him, that has taken on a supporting role in his waking nightmares. 

Jason looks pained. No, more accurately, he looks horrified. Eyes widening, slightly hunched over with his arms coming to curl around his middle like someone kicked him in the stomach. “How much has this happened?” 

“Couple times,” Dick replies, trying to downplay it with a shrugged shoulder. “It's hard to explain, but when you took back the command it didn't leave clean edges. The memories are still jumbled together, and when I get, uh. When I get stressed I sometimes have a hard time keeping them apart.” 

For a few more moments, stunned disbelief and something like shock play over Jason's face, but then his expression darkens. Dick can pinpoint the exact moment where he's closing himself off. He stands and walks into the bedroom, all calm, measured steps, no hectic in his movements at all. 

When Dick gets up as well and follows, he finds him stuffing clothes into a bag, holding it open with one hand and filling it with the other, and it doesn't seem like he's paying too much attention. One or two of the shirts he's grabbing aren't his. A pair of jeans that he steps over without a glance definitely does belong to him. 

"What are you doing?" Dick asks, even though the scene before him is rather self-explanatory. 

"Leaving,” says Jason without pause, without looking Dick's way. “Call someone else. I shouldn't be here. Not until you can look at me and stop seeing _your goddamn rapist_."

And there it is again, the word Dick's been actively avoiding. He flinches, would be glad Jason isn't looking at him except tracking the behavior of every other person in the room without being obvious about it is a part of their shared skill set. Irritation crawls up his back, together with the urge to reject Jason's word choice. 

The thing is, deep down, he knows it was rape. He does. He's not dense enough to think that label doesn't apply because he's a guy, because it was another man, because his body got off, or because there was mind control involved and he didn't actually have a chance to put up a fight. The difference is that he's supposed to save and protect people, not need saving. He understands, by now, that he can deal with the fallout of the former, but doesn't know how to handle being a victim, and so he _isn't_. He doesn't allow himself to be one. But that's a house of cards, and having that word thrown into his face makes it a little less stable, a little harder to maintain. 

Defending it will have to wait, however, because he's got to pick his battles and a lengthy explanation on why his sanity currently hinges on insisting that he was _taken_ and maybe _tortured_ but not _raped_ isn't the one that matters. Making Jason stay, that's the one he can't stand losing. 

"That's not what it's like. I don't see it every time I look at you." He steps into Jason's path, tries putting a hand on his arm, only to get shaken off. "And _we_ did that. Both of us. I asked you to do it. I don't blame you for anything."

Stoic as ever, Jason keeps... well, it probably doesn't deserve to be called _packing_. And it's not for show. Once he's done, he will leave. He'll be gone. And Dick will be on his own, without the support Jason offers, a security blanket he craves and loathes at the same time. 

Again, Dick puts himself between Jason and drawer he's got in his sights next, moves to mirror him when Jason evades. At Jason's glare, he bends down himself and pulls it open, then gets out of his way. 

He waits until Jason digs into the contents, indiscriminately stuffing socks and briefs into his bag. Then he places his hand on Jason's hip, just above the curve of the bone, vindicated by the slight hesitation that causes. "How often do I have to say it? I want you here. I _need_ you here." 

Jason tenses underneath his touch, hand stilling at the second sentence. “Oh, fucking hell, Dick.”

And Dick isn't so manipulative he'd point out that _call someone else_ wouldn't be happening. That it's the two of them going through this together, or Dick alone. He's rather certain Jason understands that, though. 

Throwing the bag to the ground, Jason straightens and half-turns to look at him. “Tell me that my being here doesn't make things more difficult for you. I don't want to hurt you any worse than I already have.” 

“You haven't hurt me, dumbass,” Dick says, using the hand he still has on Jason's hip to nudge him so he turns around all the way. 

Once that's accomplished and he's sufficiently near, he puts both hands on Jason's neck and runs his thumb back and forth over the skin just below his ears. He bides his time until some of the stiff, awkward strain bleeds out of Jason's posture, until he gives in and lets out a long breath, whispers an apology into the space between them. 

“You haven't hurt me,” Dick repeats and he slings his arms around Jason's neck, brings him down to level and briefly presses his lips to the corner of Jason's mouth. “He has. Not you.” 

Jason doesn't reply anything to that either, probably doesn't accept it. But his arms wrap around Dick's waist, hugging back, and he rests his chin on Dick's shoulder for a moment that stretches longer than Dick cares to keep track of. 

 

*** 

 

They let go of each other eventually – both reluctant but there's only so long you can stand in an the middle of the room hugging before it gets weird – and Jason goes to the kitchen, cleaning up, while Dick returns to the living room. It's a large space, open to the kitchen, and yet it's starting to feel small and oppressive. So much has been happening, in the last week, with him, between them. They've fought and they've connected and then they've fought some more, and all of it took place within these four walls: in here, in the bedroom, in the bathroom. And maybe it's like the limited space is amplifying the experience, every word thrown back by the walls like an echo and repeated at infinity, every emotion doubled, then tripled. Because it didn't seem to be that hard to shoulder through this at the start; the first few days, after, were easier. Or maybe being boxed in has nothing to do with it and what's actually going on is that the mind needs some time to comprehend, wrap itself around acknowledging what happened to the body. 

Dick stares at the couch, the ghosts of that last nightmare still clinging to his mind. He suppresses a shudder and glances to the kitchen, where Jason's got the water in the sink running to do the dishes. More than once Dick has pointed out that he owns a dishwasher; Jason tends to frown and ignore him and do them by hand anyway. 

“Need help?” Dick asks now, and Jason quirks an eyebrow at him but reaches for a towel, throws it his way. Then he turns off the faucet, glances at the pot with the stew, back at Dick, and nods towards the cabinet holding the tableware. 

“You didn't eat much earlier,” he says, eyes traveling down Dick's body in a way that's accessing and worried, rather than... whatever it used to be. “Want another bowl? I'll heat it up.”

So quickly he's gone back to that ceaseless concern, earlier irritation forgotten or pushed beneath the surface. That's what they are now; one broken, the other preoccupied with trying to piece him back together. Everything else they could have been pales under the weight of that. 

“No,” Dick says, shaking his head, and steps closer to the counter so he can pick a dripping plate off the drying rack. “I don't.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Here we go again. The chapter after this is half a scene away from being ready for beta, so that should also be posted soon. We're like, hmm, halfway through the outline? Maybe a little less? So, you know, buckle in my friends, we're not nearly done here, so many issues to untangle before the healing can begin and there's a happy end to be had.


	8. Chapter 8

Dick wakes to a dark room early the next morning. It can't be too many hours since they went to bed and consciousness trickles in slowly, reluctantly, in the way it does after having been disturbed at the wrong point in one's sleep cycle. His eyes feel heavy, and he can't tell what woke him. His brain isn't completely online yet but he's warm and comfortable and when he shifts a little it occurs to him that he's basically surrounded by Jason; Jason's chest flush against his back, Jason's arm around his waist, Jason's nose buried against his neck. There's another half-formed thought that signals this might not be a good idea, but that gets drowned in a sleepy haze as well. So Dick pushes back against him, hears him groan and mumble something unintelligible, drowsiness making his speech a little slurred. He is, however, aware enough to start nibbling at Dick's neck, cock filling where it's trapped between their bodies, his hand pressed against Dick's hip to keep him close, keep him exactly where he is, fingers just dipping past the waistband of his boxers. Dick's growing hard too and for a few more blissful seconds it's just _good_. 

Then reality comes rushing back in, because Jason's erection slips between the cheeks of Dick's ass, pushing against his taint, and Dick freezes. His breathing all but stops. Being woozy with too little sleep turns on him, makes the memories and the resulting panic, more immediate. Makes it seem more real. He gasps out a plea he himself can't quite decipher, desperate nonsense that amounts to _let go_ , to _stop_ , to _please don't_. He can hear his own heartbeat thundering, reverberating through his whole body. 

Jason's hand all but flies off his body, in the same movement as he is scooting back, creating distance between them. He rattles down his own litany, _sorry oh my fucking god I'm so sorry I didn't mean to I forgot I wasn't all there shit shit sorry_ , while Dick rolls onto his back and fights to get his breathing under control. Wrestle down the panic, remember where he is and who's with him, and that there's no reason to be afraid. 

And while the panic recedes, there's another emotion growing in him, so strongly that he wants to scream or cry with it: frustration. With himself, with the hold his memories have over him, with the cruelty of having this little bit of comfort – of rising pleasure and the sense memory of something that had begun to feel natural and right and like something he wants to keep – ripped away before it could take hold. 

But maybe what he needs to do is hold onto it a little harder. Push through the fear and find the pleasure again, the comfort. Rewrite the memories that say all this is a threat, that physical intimacy is a prelude to pain. The way his body reacts hasn't changed. It responds to Jason the same way it used to; what halts them, time and time again, is entirely in his head.

He shifts onto his side, facing Jason, and holds out his hand, beckoning. Jason's eyes are wide, worried, and it takes a moment before he complies, inching closer again. 

Dick directs his arms around him and snuggles up close, then puts Jason's hand on his ass and repositions himself so Jason's still half-hard cock presses against his thigh instead of anywhere more intimate. Because it's easier to bear. Because that, he can handle. Because he lost his own hard-on entirely and this angle makes that easier to ignore too. He presses his face to Jason's chest, eyes closed, and breathes him in. There's nothing to fear. It wasn't his idea. _It's not his fault._

Dick startles when Jason pushes his knee up between his legs, slightly parting them, and snakes a hand between them to feel for Dick's cock, limp and uninterested, through the fabric of his underwear. He leans in for a hesitant, guarded kiss, and then his hand comes back up to gently push him away. 

“No,” he says, meeting Dick's gaze, and whatever he finds there gives his expression a sad twinge. “Not like this.” 

And before Dick can convince him that it's okay, he wants this, there's a purpose to it all, Jason sits up and swings his legs out of bed. He turns back around to reach out for and squeeze Dick's hand, gets up, and walks out of the room. Dick stays behind, sitting up, bent over with his face in his hands, burning with shame and anger and frustration, neither of which he has any real outlet for. Hardly more than twenty-four hours have passed since he thought it might all be okay now, that they'll be fine, that he's getting better, and the contrast is downright physically painful. 

Dick doesn't get up. He lies back down with one arm thrown over his forehead. He pulls the comforter back up to cover himself and stares at the ceiling, or at the door, knowing that if he gets up Jason will be in the living room or in the kitchen and... he can't face him. Shame spreads through him like some kind of venom. He feels dirty, soiled, like a used and broken toy, and who could fault anyone for rejecting _that_? But it's more than that: he's a disappointment, he's a failure, he screwed up, he couldn't save himself from Vaughn and even after it's all over he still relies on sapping Jason's strength to keep his marbles together. Barely, at that, and he's basing it on a commitment Jason hadn't yet made – which he probably won't ever make, now. Of course he'd want to run, get as far away from this whole mess as possible. 

He curls on his side and closes his eyes, drifts, opens them again moments later on a sudden stab of fear. Sleep is a bad idea, especially if he's alone; that much he's learned. He's so _tired_ , though. Physically and mentally exhausted, and hey, that's a rather unsurprising side effect of daily panic attacks and too little sleep. 

There's nothing waiting for him outside this room. He's too chickenshit to face his family – they're all trained detectives, they'll _know_ , they'll _see it_ and he can't deal with that yet – and he's too tightly coiled to don the suit and hit the streets. The next time he gets triggered on the job, someone might die. Wanting to get back in the game for all his selfish reasons isn't worth the risk. 

And so he hides. He lies there, unmoving, watching the sun rise until his arm goes numb and he has to adjust his position. Hours pass. He shifts occasionally, drifts some more, always hauling himself back from the brink of sleep before it's too late and he'll cross over to where his nightmares might get hold of him. He doesn't cry. He doesn't do anything, really. Before he knows it the sun sets, darkening the room bit by bit, and he's lost the better part of a day. He remembers this indifference, this total lack of momentum, from the second day of his captivity. Nothing much has changed since then. 

And that thought is what finally, finally shocks him back to himself. Because _everything_ has changed. He's free. He's back home. He's not alone, but protected by someone who would give his _life_ to save him from further harm, who seems to understand what's going on in Dick's head and keeps reaching out no matter how many times he gets bitten away, and who does that despite the fact that the exact nature of their relationship remains up in the air. He's safe. _He's safe._ And he owes it to himself, to Jason, and to the people who rely on him to watch their backs, to stop acting like he's still chained. He couldn't fight in that basement; he can fight now. 

He crawls out from under the covers and pads into the living room. 

“Slept well?” Jason asks, sat at the couch with his tablet in his lap. He looks up at Dick, and his thin-lipped, uneven smile does a rather poor job of hiding the worry in his expression. 

Dick shrugs, blanking on any halfway reasonable explanation for staying in bed all day, but not allowing himself the easy way out. “I didn't sleep.” 

From the look on his face – understanding, indeed, and so terribly, painfully sad – Jason doesn't require an explanation anyway. He puts the tablet away and scoots to the edge of the couch, making room. 

Dick shakes his head. “I think I'll take a shower first.”

It sounds like a good idea: washing off the poisonous thoughts that wormed their way into his mind today and the sour stink of yesterday's panic and desperation. He doesn't take the time to heat up the bathroom before he strips and for those few moments it takes to cross the room and step under the spray, the cold air on his bare skin is an uncomfortable reminder, sends goosebumps down his back for another reason entirely. But the warm water melts those memories away before they can take hold, and he closes his eyes, letting it prattle over him until he feels more like himself again. 

Jason quirks an eyebrow when Dick returns to the living room. He hasn't picked the tablet back up, and it's strangely comforting to know he stood watch, his attention undivided, just in case he might be needed. 

“I feel like a movie,” Dick says, glancing between Jason, the TV, and his admittedly meager DVD collection. “Do you wanna watch a movie, Jay?” 

“Whatever,” answers Jason, but the corners of his mouth lift for a small smile at the nickname. Dick's been using it sparsely since... since. Not for any particular reason; it just didn't feel right. 

He wanders over to the shelf, lets his finger drag over the edges of each case, and then tugs _I'm Not There_ from in between its friends. He waves it around, earning himself a shrug from Jason. 

“The cover already looks artsy,” he says, making a face. “What's it about?” 

“Bob Dylan, sort of,” says Dick, plopping down on the couch. “Heath Ledger's in it, though,” he adds by the way of enticement. “He was hot. Universal truth. Don't argue with me on that one.” 

Jason doesn't bite. “Something tells me that's not the only reason you have it.” 

That's the end of that argument, though, and for a little while Jason submits to his fate. Not too long; about fifteen minutes in he sits up and shoots Dick a look. Much like their taste in anything else, the venn diagrams for their taste in fiction don't overlap much either. 

“What?” asks Dick, because he's fairly sure Jason is practically about to vibrate with the need to voice his complaints. He's not much of a movie person in the first place, so if he deigns to give one his attention and ends up disliking it he's going to be grumpy. That's not a recent observation; they held one or two movie nights near the end of his time in the manor, bonding time, and Dick already found it hilarious back then. The intensity, the pouting, the inability to keep his discontent to himself about something so trivial. It was endearing back then, and it still is now. 

“This doesn't make _sense_ ,” Jason whines, slumping back against the backrest with his arms crossed behind his head. 

“Yeah,” Dick concedes. “Making sense isn't the point. It's supposed to be beautiful. Inspiring. A journey based on his music.” 

At that, Jason groans. “Well, his music sucks too, so I don't know what I expected.” 

“I like his music,” Dick says, and he shifts closer, fits himself into the open space left by Jason's current position. 

Jason tenses, turns his head, but he does lower his arms and wraps one of them around tentatively Dick's waist. “Of course you do. You also like Jazz. On the whole, you have the music taste of a middle-aged rich guy forever trying to recapture his college days,” he says, then smirks. “Does that sound like someone we know?”

The joke comes out in an odd tone; the smile doesn't reach his eyes. But he's making an effort, and that counts for something. Dick can match him on that, at least. “I'm not sure he actually has an opinion on something as irrelevant as music or movies. No time for that. Too busy brooding.” 

Huffing a laugh, Jason relaxes a little. His arm around Dick tightens incrementally. Dick presses against his side in response, and he lets out a breath. “True. No favorite tune other than the sweet sound of a villain’s confession, no movie more important than the security tapes from the latest break-in at some research facility or other.” 

The music and voices from the TV fade into the background and Dick gives up on affording them any attention. He's got Jason right here. He feels comfortable; he feels adventurous, determined, and he's got an agenda here, a mission to accomplish, a theory to prove. He glances up at Jason from under his lashes, places a hand on his thigh, lowers his voice a little when he says, “I don't really want to talk about Bruce right now.” 

Jason's eyes fall to Dick's hand. He wets his lips, says Dick's name, says it like a question. 

“Shush,” Dick replies, touching the side of Jason's face in order to tip his head down. He cranes his own head up and seals their lips together, waits until Jason opens his mouth to let him in, let him turn it into a kiss. It's unhurried but deep, tongue and all, and it feels good. Dick's never been much of an avid kisser; not a dislike, he simply didn't consider it to be that special. Now he's finding a new appreciation for it, how it allows him moments of intimacy without too much risk for his brain to throw him trapdoors. But safety is not the goal right now. 

Breaking the kiss, Dick extracts himself from Jason's side and sits up, shifting to straddle him instead. He makes sure that he's situated on Jason's thighs rather than his crotch, just as a precaution. Jason keeps a wary eye on him and Dick smiles, an attempt to put them both at ease. His hands land on Dick's knees, but the gesture is careful, another inquiry, requiring permission. Dick nods at him. A few seconds tick by while they both settle into the situation in their own way, for their own reasons; Dick resists the instinct to take a steadying breath or screw his eyes shut. Neither would fly past Jason, and ticking him off to the fact that Dick's actions aren't entirely spontaneous might spoil the attempt. 

Once he's as ready as he expects he's going to get, Dick leans back and pulls his shirt over his head. Instantly, Jason's hands curl into fists, twitching with what Dick assume – hopes – is the desire to reach out and touch. He doesn't act on it, leaves his hands firmly on Dick's legs and instead merely stares, confused and unsure. Might be there's a little more guidance needed here, then, more explicit permission. Dick reaches down and takes both of Jason's hands in his, fingers threaded together, and moves them up his body. Jason doesn't resist, goes along. His breath hitches when they reach naked skin. 

They pause like that, a strange stalemate where Jason doesn't seem to dare act on what he clearly wants and Dick's not sure how much further he should push. It ends when Dick disentangles their hands, braces them on the seat and leans forward so he can get back to kissing, hopefully communicate that way that it's _okay_ , that he wants this, that he's giving the go-ahead. He closes his eyes and seals their lips together, and a moment later Jason's hands start sliding up and down the sides of his torso, gingerly, grazing mostly with his fingertips and little else. They leave goosebumps in their wake, the fleeting brushes electric in that way that makes the slightest contact build up and shoot through Dick's nerves, and he gasps, the noise swallowed by Jason's mouth sealed over his. Without too much conscious thought, he rolls his hips against where he's sat on Jason's thighs, and he expects it this time, the sudden shock of a touch or a movement or flicker of arousal triggering a memory. 

Maybe that's why it doesn't come. 

He lifts his hips, repositioning himself closer to Jason's crotch, try and make this good for both of them, but that's when Jason's hand stills, gripping a little more firmly just over the jut of Dick's hip bone. It's an abortive motion, a full stop, and he draws back from the kiss on top of it, turning his head to the side. 

"Let me up,” he says, slightly breathless. “I gotta pee."

Dick slumps away from him, wordlessly, and he listens for the sounds of the toilet flushing and the water going in the sink; if it's a lie, an excuse, then at least Jason keeps up the pretense. He returns with an awkward, apologetic smile and sits back down on the far end of the couch, one leg crossed over the other, leaning on the armrest. 

Out of pure spite, Dick reaches for the remote control and starts the movie over from the beginning, rather than looking for the last scene where they payed attention to what's been happening on the screen. He redresses and makes himself comfortable on the opposite armrest, not sparing Jason another glance for most of what's left of the evening. 

 

***

 

Around noon the next day, Jason asks for permission to use Dick's computer, stating he's got something to check up on, and stays there for the next couple of hours. And maybe that's the truth, he's still got active business ties in Gotham's underworld and must have obligations that don't disappear because Dick hogs him out of fear of being alone. Nevertheless, with how the last couple days have been going, it's hard not to interpret that as a flimsy excuse to stay out of his way while not actually leaving. 

Jason doesn't break promises. Neither of them does. Once they've made one, they'll keep it, no matter how much it costs or how much they might want to cut their losses and run. 

Left with some alone time, Dick entertains himself with daytime TV and videos games. One of his favorites isn't in the stack by the TV set, and he doesn't have to think where he might have put it for long. It's at the safe house. Left there after he went on patrol the day Jason took off to help Roy and Kori; the last time he's been there before they used it as a stage to poke at Dick's memories. The last time Jason touched him and they didn't both think of a third person, hovering over everything they do like a thick, stifling shadow. 

It's no wonder Jason doesn't want to go along with that. The constant stops and starts must have gotten old, feel like a fruitless and intentional tease. Dick sweeps his hand through the small shelf that holds his games, scatters them on the floor in front of him. _He's trying._. And Jason won't let him anymore, gives up before he's got a chance to prove that he can still follow through, that they can have this back. That's one option, anyway; the other would be that Jason doesn't want it back anymore. 

Out of nowhere, Jason clears his throat behind him, and Dick shoots to his feet, turns around to find him standing in the door frame of the backroom, staring at the pile of games. Then his gaze flickers to Dick. 

“You got a message from the replacement,” he says, keeping eye contact for all of fifteen seconds before he looks away. “Apparently you're not answering texts on your cell phone, and our fearless Red Robin is resorting to more desperate measures.” 

That might be because Dick doesn't even remember where his cell phone _is_ ; the last time he's seen it was during his mad dash to get rid of the soiled clothes after Tim's call. Bathroom? Bedroom? Kitchen? He'll have to search for it later. 

Now he follows Jason to the computer; resists the urge to reach or his hand and thread their fingers together again, doesn't know how he'd cope with being turned down. Jason stands by the desk chair and waves his hand, and Dick sits, calls up the messenger and reads. _Hey we know you're still on leave, but there's a WE meeting tomorrow, you good for that?_ , it says, and without thinking about it he types back, _Sure, when?_

Behind him, Jason huffs, but offers no comment. Dick turns around in the chair. “So you're not gonna tell me I shouldn't go?” 

Jason crosses his arms in front of his chest. “If I were, would you listen?” 

“Nope,” says Dick, truthfully. 

And Jason exhales, the expression on his face steady, detached, not betraying a reaction. No annoyance, no worry. Nothing. “Then what's the point?” 

The messenger pings with a time and an emoticon, and Dick merely gives it a quick glance before he locks eyes with Jason again. He could type his answer and go back to the living room so Jason can continue doing whatever he's been up to in here. He's not about to do that. 

He stares Jason down for another long moment, then inhales, suddenly scared. But knows what he needs to do; as much as he relies on Jason, in this, with the... effects of his captivity, he's not going to draw out the inevitable. Breakups are best done swift and early. If he's going to lose this, lose Jason, then he's going to rip the bandaid off now rather than trapping him here for much longer. 

“Do you want out?” he asks, manages to push the question out without the slightest waver in his voice. 

Jason blinks. “We talked about that. Twice. I said I won't leave, and I'll – “

“No.” Dick shakes his head. “I'm asking if you _want out_. You know, us. If you want to end this. I get if you can't be with me anymore after what happened. It's difficult, I'm difficult, I can't even offer you our usual pastimes, and we were never...” That's when his voice finally peters out on him, won't let him get anymore words past his lips. He clutches at the seat of the chair, tries again. “You're under no obligation here. You don't owe me anything.” 

Almost in slow motion, Jason's eyes narrow. “I'm not going to run out on you just because sex is off the table right now.” He uncrosses his arms, hooks a finger into his belt loops on each side instead. “But if that's honestly what you think, then maybe I should.”

“Sex is off the table?” Dick parrots, temper raising on him faster than he could stomp down on it, and it turns his tone venomous. “That's rich, coming from you. The last couple of times, _you've_ been the one who shot _me_ down.”

And Jason's staring again, nearly gapes at him, disbelieving. “That has nothing to do with not wanting you anymore. Of course I do. You're gorgeous, and I...” His voice drops, going lower, quieter, and it's so tempting to hope, fill in the blanks and imagine how that sentence might have ended. “You're still you. But right now it feels wrong. Desire feels wrong. Wanting the same things again that he forced you into feels _so wrong_.” He steps back, shakes his head. “And I think about that and then I remember that, if I squint, I can still see the shiner _I_ gave you when we were in that basement, I hear you begging me to stop, and I can't figure out how to touch you, how and where it'd be safe.”

It's Dick's turn to look at him lost for words, scrambling to formulate a reply. The thought that this had an effect on both of them escapes him sometimes; they've both been in that basement the second time around, they both sacrificed something to catch Vaughn. And for Jason, that sacrifice comes in the form of knowing what it feels like when your intimate partner looks at you with blank, desperate fear in his eyes, knowing in that moment you're the person he's so afraid of. But that leaves them at an impasse. 

“So I'm asking you again,” he says, this time trying to keep his voice lower instead of spitting the offer in Jason's face. “Do you want to end this? Start over with someone new, leave all this behind?” 

Jason shakes his head without a second of hesitation. “I don't want anyone else.” 

He holds Dick's eyes, steady and unflinching, and if he understands the possible meaning that sentence conveys, the magnitude, he doesn't seem afraid or ashamed of it, doesn't seem regretful. Dick swallows. “We'll have to figure out a way around this, then. What do you need from me?” 

The sadness that falls over Jason's expression at that question is like an unintentional slap to the face. It's sympathy and guilt, Dick _knows_ it is, but it veers too close to pity. “You shouldn't be asking _me_ that.” 

“I am asking you, though,” Dick says, and it's harder to keep his voice gentle, to not give in and rear up and make this entire conversation turn ugly. “Because I know you'll look out for me and withdraw, you've proven as much, and I... I have to keep trying. I've got to know sex, intimacy, that whole deal isn't ruined, that he hasn't taken that from me for good. So tell me what you need in order to help me get it back.” 

“Alright, then.” Jason steps closer, crouches, pulls Dick's hand out from where it's still been curled around the chair and takes it in his. The gesture is soft, but his tone stays all business, light but firm, and Dick knows that's for his benefit. “Promise me that you'll tell me if you panic, if you're in pain, if you have to stop, if you're about to forget who I am or where you are. Let me know what it is that _you_ need. Be honest with me and don't tell me you're fine to continue when you're visibly hanging on by a thread.” 

Honesty is a difficult request when Dick doesn't know his own trauma responses anymore, lost control of the panicky lizard brain that acts before it thinks in a continued effort to save him from harm. Not like it did him much good when it mattered, merely kept clamoring at him even though he was unable to move, fight, save himself. But he guesses he can promise the rest, and so it wouldn't be starting out on a lie if he agrees on the whole. He is trying to figure out what he needs, for his own sake, after all, and he already did vow to Jason he wouldn't hide his moods and reactions; this just adds more context. 

“I promise,” Dick says, and he leaves his hand in Jason's while he types his final reply to Tim, the confirmation for the time of the meeting, then clicks out of the messenger window. He rises to his feet, Jason unfolding and standing up with him. 

He indicates the now unoccupied chair and Jason looks at him like someone hit fast-forward and he lost the plot, eyes weaving back and forth between him, the chair, and the screen. Dick steps back from the chair, creating enough distance that Jason would have to let go or follow. 

Jason doesn't follow. “I won't be long,” he says, sitting down. 

“Don't worry about it,” replies Dick, nodding towards the living room. “I have a game console to yell at. That should kill an hour or two.” 

 

***

 

The game he ends up picking manages to keep his attention for less than half an hour. Too much has happened the last two days – hell, the last _week_ , he didn't have a chance to really settle down since he marched out of that basement – and he realizes that engaging and busying his mind isn't enough, isn't the right kind of distraction. He has to _move_. He has to get out of this apartment, has to give that another test run before he marches into WE tomorrow, trying to pretend nothing's wrong, everything's normal. 

There is nothing to fear, he reminds himself yet again. It's all in his head. 

He turns off the TV and the console, gets properly dressed, and only then peeks his head into the bedroom to announce his intentions. “I'm going for a walk.”

Jason glances up, turns, hands already on the armrests to push himself out of his chair. “Do you want me to join you?"

"I'm perfectly capable of walking down the street on my own,” Dick says, shaking his head. "And I'd like to go alone. But thank you." 

To his credit, Jason doesn't argue. He gives a small nod and returns to his work, although his posture tightens and gives away his concern, the urge to come with, shield and protect. It'd be touching, if Dick weren't so ashamed of invoking the assumption that he requires protection in the first place. He all but sneaks out of the door, not tossing back so much as a goodbye, see you later. 

Once outside, he hovers by the front door, unsure of which direction to take. He doesn't have a plan or a destination, running out of the house like an animal let out of its cage for the first time in days, only glad that it _can_ run now and less concerned with the specifics, where or which way. It's late, the kind of time at which he'd usually think about patrolling, and the thought makes him itchy, restless, a junkie that went too long without a hit and knows he should try and resist a little longer. 

There's a corner shop about fifteen minutes away, well-stocked and open around the clock. He could go the long way around and swing by there on the way back, finally getting the necessities and snack foods they didn't bother getting the other day, after visiting the market. 

He heads off in the opposite direction of the shop, lays out a route in his head that will keep him busy for the better part of an hour, maybe a little longer. He walks past the junction to the industrial district, ignoring the up-level shopping streets that lead into the more sophisticated parts of the city. Gotham's doomed attempts and being pretty and safe don't interest him on the best of days; tonight they actively revolt him. He's not quite adventurous yet to venture too far towards crime alley, the red light districts, ugly but honest and also more likely to raise a few heads; without the mask, his face might garner attention down there, an inappropriate environment for a Wayne. Not something he cares about, usually, but... There's testing his limits and there's being stupid, and he does have some self-preservation instincts left intact. 

He does a few halfhearted somersaults over the benches by the riverbank, frowning at how stiff and alien his own body feels. It's different than the last time he went out, ended up getting triggered by that stupid pair of handcuffs, and he wonders if maybe what's missing is the pain. If this is like waiting out sore muscles; worse to fall out of the habit than it is biting your lips through the discomfort of working past a residual ache. 

He walks, on autopilot, mind kept blank, until he sees the neon sign of the corner shop appear down the street. He nods at the cashier – enough late night post-patrol grocery runs to be friendly with most of the regular night staff – and takes a shopping basket from the stack by the door, knows which aisles contain what he'll need but strolls around anyway. That's how he lands in the childcare section, and how is eyes land at a few bottles of cheap, no name baby oil that makes the blood freeze in his veins. He recognizes the logo, albeit dirty and peeling off at the edges. He immediately remembers the smell. Standing in front of the shelf, he stares at the bottles, doesn't quite dare to take one and uncap it to check. He's sure anyway. 

After nearly a minute of standing there, rooted to the spot, Dick bends down, takes a bottle, and puts it into his basket. The rest of his shopping is done in a hurry, no more idle strolling, and he drops his wallet when he pays because his fingers have gone clammy, tosses the cashier a smile while he apologizes for the clumsiness and making her wait. He makes it back to his building in a little more than ten minutes, his pace brisk and haunted. 

Back in the apartment, he leaves the grocery bag on the counter and only digs out the baby oil, uncapping the bottle with shaking hands to take a sniff and get confirmation that it is, indeed, the kind remembers. He nearly gags. After that, he walks into the bathroom, puts the bottle into the very corner of his cabinet, out of sight but there, available. He calls Jason's name and doesn't get an answer, finds the back room dark and empty. And although he doesn't expect Jason to bail quietly while he's out, not anymore, not after everything, he's relieved when he pads into the bedroom and sees Jason's sleeping form under the covers, stretched out on his back, one arm strewn across his stomach. 

Dick strips to briefs and t-shirt and lies down next to him, nudges his arm until Jason reacts, makes room for him and closes it around his torso once Dick's done snuggling up against him. 

Head on his chest, hand resting in the same place Jason's own arm had lain just moments before, Dick focuses on the heat of his body, on the rhythm of his breathing, both of them so familiar and comforting, to ground himself before he speaks. 

"He had cold hands,” Dick starts. “All the time. He never bothered to warm them up before he put them inside me, for a cursory prep, just enough so he'd had an easier time on the first shove. He used cheap baby oil, both for that and for jerking me off those couple times. Dunno why, it's a shit lube and – maybe because of that. It didn't help much, after the first fuck it mostly just stung that much more. I'll never forget the smell." Dick pauses, thinking about the bottle in the bathroom cabinet, about why he got it, what it's supposed to represent. "I know you're not him. You would never hurt me on purpose. You're always warm, running hot. I know your scent, the way we smell together. And I'll try to remember that, okay?"

Jason gathers him closer, and Dick feels Jason's breath gust out against his temple when he whispers, “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have to take care of more deadlines before the end of the month, there's fic trades I really, really should work on and I have another trip coming up, sooooooo, see you guys back here in May. ;) But in the meantime I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support and excitement for this fic. It means a lot to me and it's encouraging to see that I'm not the only one who cares about seeing it continued. I appreciate everyone who shows up to comment with every update, or even just once, so much. Thank you!! ♥


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, is this thing on? Anyone still reading? XD

The shrill beeping of his alarm clock tears Dick out of deep, dreamless sleep, and he squints at the digital display. Somewhere in the back of his head he's aware that he'll have to get up and get ready and go be _a Wayne_ , he agreed to that and Bruce hates it when they're late. 

He switches the bedside lamp on, sits up and throws the covers aside. Then he sends a glance to the other side of the bed, finds Jason squinting at him blearily. “Sorry,” he says. “I know that thing is loud.” 

“It's not just that it's loud,” Jason replies, “but that it sounds like a whole basket of drowning cats.” 

Dick hits the button for the alarm to stop and gets to his feet, replacing the cozy glow of the bedside lamp with the brighter overhead lights. He pads over to his wardrobe and starts pulling out office wear, getting dressed still dazed with sleep, and it doesn't occur to him until he catches sight of himself in the mirror, after having stepped away to fumble a tie out of the bedside drawer, that it occurs to him _what_ he's wearing. 

He's in dark blue dress pants and a half-buttoned up white dress shirt. He has a dozen of those. Like the one he was wearing the day – 

He hectically stumbles away from the mirror, from his own reflection. 

“What's wrong?” Jason asks from the bed, and out of the corner of his eyes Dick can see him get out of bed, walking over. Stopping about two feet away from Dick, he hovers behind him, his face joining Dick's in the mirror. His eyes are flitting around the room, then up and down Dick's reflection, and Dick can see the moment Jason figures it out. He sucks in a breath, visibly, and reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Ah, fuck.” 

The first impulse Dick has is to wriggle out of the shirt and throw it to the floor like it's burning him, like someone set it on fire, but that won't get him anywhere. If he backs out of the meeting, he'll have to explain himself, arouse further suspicion, so he'll just have to get past this. Get dressed, get used to seeing himself in the kind of clothes he wore _that day_. He shakes his head. Takes a deep breath. Extends a hand behind himself. 

“Come here,” he says to Jason, who steps closer and takes it seemingly without thinking, but then freezes. Dick tugs on his hand. “Please, come here. I need... I want you close. I want to be reminded that you're here. That I'm not alone. I think it'll help.” 

He tugs again, and Jason relents, steps up behind him, lets Dick sling his arms around Dick's waist and then holds the position. For a moment, Dick leans back into Jason's solid warmth and closes his eyes. No one's opened a window yet and the room still smells like both of them, the air thick and a little stuffy. He feels Jason shift behind him, face pressed against Dick's neck, nuzzling him, and it feels natural to turn around for a kiss. Eyes still closed, Dick searches for Jason's mouth, half-expecting him to avoid the invitation, shy away, but he doesn't. He meets Dick's lips and lets him in, and it's all making him a bit light-headed, the stale air, the intensity of Jason's scent fresh out of bed, the slightly sour taste of his morning breath. 

It's familiar, a reminder of better, easier times, and as such does indeed serve to ground him. He presses his lips to the corner of Jason's mouth when they part, mumbles a _thank you_ against his skin, and then opens his eyes to face himself in the mirror. Jason stays close, hands wrapped loosely around Dick's waist, low enough so he doesn't get in the way when Dick buttons up the shirt the rest of the way. His eyes are still closed, face pressed to the top of Dick's head, and in that moment Dick loves him so much he could burst with the force of the emotion. 

He turns around in Jason's arms once he's done with the shirt, and Jason blinks, meeting his eyes. Dick leans in to kiss him again, kiss the confusion away, adjusts his stance so he can wedge his thigh between Jason's legs. He lifts it just so, and is met with the beginning of an erection. 

Jason tenses. “I'm not – “ he starts, but Dick shushes him. 

“I know,” he says. He presses his thigh up higher and Jason groans, looking away. And that won't work; Dick won't let him. He puts his hand on Jason's chin, coaxes him back around, regaining eye contact. “It's okay. I'm okay. I'll tell you if I need to stop, right? Like we agreed?” 

There's a nod in response, but the tension remains evident in Jason's posture. The way he holds himself, holds Dick, has gone awkward. Dick has to remind himself that it's not a lack of _wanting_ and that this isn't a rejection, not really. Jason presses his own leg against Dick's crotch, one hand sliding down to his ass, and Dick pipes up, hopeful, but he's disappointed when Jason sighs, relieves the pressure again almost instantly and wriggles free. Dick stares a question at him once there's enough distance between them, and Jason glances down Dick's body, and, ah. 

Dick is still nowhere near a boner. He breathes in, tells himself that, were their places swapped, he'd also be bothered by such an obvious lack of reciprocated excitement. He checks the clock on the bedside table; it's late already. He'll have to let this one go. 

He smiles at Jason. “You go ahead, make us coffee? I'll finish here.” 

Jason looks like he wants protest, stay, ask him if he's okay, but to his credit he yet again stays silent. He nods, smiles back, and trots off to put on the aforementioned pot of coffee. 

Dick pads into the kitchen ten minutes later, properly dressed, jacket and polished shoes and everything. Jason acknowledges his arrival with another smile and a nod towards the coffee machine, but he otherwise keeps his attention on his own mug and the newspaper he's flicking through, too fast to actually catch any of its contents. The sight reminds Dick so much of Bruce it's near painful and a little unsettling, and he decides it's probably best if he keeps _that_ thought to himself. Although, well, it's said people do tend to pick partners that in some way emulate their parents, which is also a creepy thought, all things considered, but imagining the mortification involved from both Jason and Bruce if presented with that theory does soothe Dick's mind a little. Even has him smiling to himself a bit when he chases after it, plays it through in his head. 

“What's so funny?” Jason asks. He might have intended to sound mocking, but his tone ends up closer to relief, said on an exhale. 

Dick rolls his shoulders. “Nothing. Just thought you look like a proper Wayne right now.” 

“I do _not_ ,” protests Jason. “Take that back.” 

And it'd be almost effortless to keep bantering, tease him some more about how Bruce has imprinted on him despite both their best efforts to avoid that. Everyone who talks to Jason for more than five minutes knows that's a sore spot. Dick has ample experience in exploiting it. This too is easy, familiar. 

But for some reason, easy and familiar feels inappropriate at the moment. He's nervous. Jason still has guilt radiating off him like a bad smell. They're both pretending. Jason made him promise not to do that. 

“We could have kept going, just now,” he says, because it feels important. “We could have tried. I could have gotten into it.” 

Jason opens his mouth, and Dick holds out a hand, shakes his head. 

“No, let me finish,” he continues, gaze lowered to stare into his coffee. “We have an agreement, and I'll tell you if I don't want something, if it gets too much. You don't have to hold back.”

“Okay,” Jason says, and Dick doesn't look up to catch the impression that goes with it. The tone says enough, low and careful, like even talking about this might end up a trigger. “But there's a big difference between not touching you in general and not fucking you when you're still so off that you can't even get hard. You were raped a week ago. Agreement or no, you don't have to prove anything. I can wait until you're ready.” 

There it is again. Dick squeezes his eyes shut, breathes out through clenched teeth, then glances up to look him in the eye. “I wasn't angling for a _fuck_. And I wish you'd stop using that word for... for what happened to me.” 

“You wish...” Jason starts, like he needs to repeat that so it makes sense, but then he falls silent. Swallows heavily, and this time it's him who breaks eye contact, voice near devoid of inflection when he speaks again. “Fine. I'll avoid it.” 

He turns to put his mug in the dishwasher, gestures for Dick's next. Instead of handing it to him, Dick walks up to him and places it on the counter just above the appliance. He ignores the frown that prompts and heads back to the bedroom; it's getting late, he'll have to gather his things and head over to WE. 

If he's the one running, for a change, then at least he's doing it for a purpose and with good reason. 

 

*** 

 

For however many years now, Dick hasn't paid too much attention to the WE building. Another tower, another glass-and-iron display of the name's success and wealth. He doesn't care too much for that side of his supposed legacy. Technically it isn't his anymore anyway, since Damian showed up; he's fine signing all his supposed rights as the eldest sibling away. He had his stint in the cowl, and he doesn't need another. He certainly doesn't have an interest in heading the company again. 

Point is, it's been awhile since he actually _looked_ at the stupid company building. But now that he's standing in the plaza, skin crawling for no reason he can put his finger on, he glances up at the giant glass front and the people buzzing about behind them. So many people, new faces around every time he's here, and he never thought much of it. 

Until one of them took him and made his life a living hell for two days. 

Dick shudders, allows himself a moment of aimless, diffuse fear, then pulls himself together and walks through the door. He smiles at the young woman at the front desk – she's been working here for a while, he's seen her before, he knows her – and points up, waits for her acknowledging nod before calling an elevator. 

Upstairs, Tim's already waiting for him, by the elevator doors, and any other day Dick might find that endearing. Today the nervous once over Tim gives him, the concerned frown on his face, are entirely unwelcome. Tim's smart. Tim's the most tenacious, stubborn investigator out of all of them. If he figures out Dick's off kilter, he won't rest until he found out why. And that can't happen. 

“Missed me that much?” Dick says, winking at him, and Tim's cheeks redden a little. 

“You don't usually step out for that long,” Tim replies. “I wanted to make sure you're okay, is all.” 

And as if he needs physical reassurance too, Tim reaches out, briefly wrapping his hand around Dick's wrist, and it takes all of Dick's self-control not to flinch. It's not the touch itself so much as it is the suddenness, the lack of warning. The only person who touched him _since_ is Jason, and Jason went to great lengths to make sure he doesn't surprise him. 

Despite his best efforts, his discomfort doesn't go unnoticed. Tim withdraws his hand a little too quickly for any other conclusion, squints at him, mumbles an apology. Dick inwardly curses. 

Out loud, he says, “So what's on the agenda today? What're we sitting in for?” 

“Research budget meeting,” Tim says, then launches into a detailed explanation that Dick zones out of after roundabout the third sentence. But there's something soothing in the familiar cadence of Tim's voice, stumbling over himself when he explains the maths and the tech behind it all, excited by all the numbers and possibilities. 

Dick follows him to the main conference room, half the table already occupied. He can't help scanning the faces around him before he sits down, _knows_ Vaughn can't be here but needs to be certain, and only after that does he turn to address Bruce. He looks Dick over, too, but his scrutiny is easier to endure; it's mechanical, instinctive, checking for any signs of injury or agitation because that's what he _does_ , because he's their teacher and he's in charge of them and he can't shake that just because they're in a business setting and not in the cave. 

Bruce meets his eyes at last, and Dick smiles brightly at him. The squinted look Bruce gives him means they're not done here, he's going to continue his examination later, but for all his skill and sharp intellect, Bruce isn't as difficult to fool. Bruce wants him to be okay. Bruce needs him to be okay. Bruce is the closest thing Dick has had to a father for more than a decade, and in some aspects that makes him willfully blind. Dick isn't above exploiting that, and he could write the book on how to pull that off. His smile doesn't waver.

Then both their attention is called to the presentation in front of them, and Bruce frowns, turning to the screen. 

 

***

 

After the meeting, Bruce is called away for signatures and phone calls, and Dick joins Tim in his office. Technically Dick's got an office here too, but the last time he used it was when Bruce was missing, and, yeah no, not going there again. Tim, on the other hand, actually works in here, not just on paper, and that's visible in the stack of paper in his inbox, the post-its on his computer screen, the full paper bin. Dick perches on the visitor's chair, balancing on the back rather than sitting down properly, and watches Tim work through his own stack of documents to read and sign. He looks at home here, belongs into the corporate world just as much as he does in the cave, and for a moment it's okay. It's normal. Like the world didn't stop when Dick was taken, like it continued moving in the same path as always for everyone else. And maybe Dick can force it back on track, too, if he just tries hard enough. It's a good thing he came here, rather than staying cooped up at home, in his own world, in a bubble of pain. 

Except then Tim looks up from his documents after maybe the third signature, a frown on his face that matches Bruce so closely it's eerie – more so after Dick already recognized the same thing in Jason earlier this morning. 

Tim puts the letter he was reading down, sorts it away, and scratches his temple. “Hey, since you were out of commission, we haven't talked about Alfred's birthday present yet. I thought we could get something together, and I had an idea, a weekend trip. But I couldn't get a hold of you, so I went ahead and booked. Hope that's okay?” 

Dick nods, feeling a stab of guilt. He'd forgotten about the birthday. Then he feels caught, exposed, pinned up to be examined, because this is Tim fishing. Tim knows one of the last things Dick would ever forget is Alfred's birthday. He knows that simply being laid up from an injury wouldn't put Dick off course so much he'd forget that. He knows Dick's sense of duty is usually too strong to allow him to be unresponsive for more than a day, unless he's knocked out or otherwise physically impaired and literally can't respond. 

“Sure,” Dick says, looking at his hands, his mind racing to come up with a better explanation, something more solid and believable. He's stalling, in simpler words, and hoping Tim doesn't see right through it. “And sorry for the radio silence the last few days.” 

“Nah,” says Tim, waving a hand picking up the next letter. He doesn't read, it though; his eyes don't move. He's still watching Dick, trying to be stealthy. It's not even a bad effort. It's just hard for one bat to pull a trick the other bat in the room won't immediately catch. “Don't worry about it. I was gonna ask what you think after the last meeting you were at, but I forgot, so I messed up too. I texted you after, though. You never replied, didn't you get any of that?"

Guilt and unease solidify on the spot, coalescence to something that injects ice into Dick's veins, makes him paralyzed in cold horror. Tim texted him _after the meeting_. He texted him while he was... Fuck. Dick's pulse picks up, the mere realization pushing his mind towards the open wound he's nowhere near patching up yet, and it costs him all the strength he's worked so hard on building since he was a goddamn child to gather himself. He hopes and prays that none of that showed on his face, but he's not brave enough to meet Tim's gaze head on again. He feels transparent. He yet again feels like the agony and shame are written across his forehead, impossible to miss or ignore. 

“I went on a mission with Jason, something Roy asked him to do I think,” Dick replies, the first cover story that pops into his head, and there's enough truth in it that the lie flows easily. All he needs is an explanation of why he went dark for several days. “Did I mention that before? Anyway, he pretty much snatched me off the street on my way home, and I'm not sure I even had cell reception where we went. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to worry you.” 

As explanations go it's still flimsy, but he'll have to check in with Jason before he gets into more detail, in case it comes up again. The last thing he needs is Tim actually getting over their animosity for once and asking Jason for confirmation, just to not have their stories match. This cover needs to hold, be ironclad. 

Tim smiles back. It's not all that convincing. He never was too good at pretending, and Dick can practically see the wheels still turning behind his eyes. “It happens. That's the job, right?” 

Could be he's out of smart follow up questions for now, could be he's offering to change the topic because he senses Dick's uncomfortable. Either way, they can talk about something else, and Dick is about to ask about Tim's latest cases and get a hold of the conversation when the glass door to the office opens and Bruce knocks on the door frame. 

“I'm done,” he says, looks from Tim to Dick. “Why don't you join us? The car will be around in five minutes, I already called.” 

Dick hesitates. He wants to get back home, be around someone who knows, where he doesn't have to lie or worry about getting caught on a lie, doesn't have to weigh his every word. But he doesn't like the way Bruce is looking at him, concerned and inquisitive, and leaving already might make that worse. Tim sniffing around would be bad. Bruce sniffing around would be _impossible_. He can't find out. He can never know that his eldest, his second in command and currently still designated heir – while Damian is so young – got his inept ass captured by a simple untrained human with an interest in ancient magic. Going with them now will at least give him a better shot at appeasing Bruce. That's the more pressing concern; he'll worry about Tim later. 

And so he shrugs and slides off the chair with another smile so fake it makes his face hurt, so difficult to maintain it makes him feel like he's splitting at the seams. “Sure.”

 

*** 

 

Odd isn't quite the right word to describe how it feels, being in the cave when some parts of his body still carry the leftover aches from his captivity. The darkness in here, the deceptively wide space, are familiar and as such a comfort, but he also finds himself wary of its shadows. The lack of light. The possibility for someone to conceal themselves in the dark corners and come for him. The cold stone that might as well bear hooks into which to hook chains that would bind him, hold him immobile – 

Bruce's voice breaks the spiral. “Would you like to have a go?” he asks, nodding towards the sparing mats. “If you feel up to it.” 

The question isn't unexpected, Dick knew it was coming – the next part of his examination. Physical fitness this time, and hidden injuries. Passing this one will be child's play. The worst of that, for the most part, are some fading aches and bruises. He's been fighting with those almost every single day since he was a teenager. 

“Sure,” he says, shooting Bruce an easy smile. “Let's roll, old man.” 

Predictably, Bruce growls at the _old man_. Dick throws Tim a conspiratorial wink, but all he gets in return is a belated, dutiful grin. The kid's been thinking about something else, then, and Dick swallows the stab of anxiety that realization causes. Later. He'll deal with Tim _later_. 

“Where's Dami?” he asks while he gets his workout gear out of his locker, by the way of keeping the conversation going, keep Tim distracted. Judging from the way Tim narrows his eyes, like he's sitting over a puzzle and another piece is about to fall into place, that was the wrong move. 

“Class trip,” Tim answers, voice low, tone almost questioning. “I'm surprised you didn't know.” 

The option Tim doesn't offer is that Dick forgot, just like he forgot about Alfred's birthday. Both are things that wouldn't slip Dick's mind under normal circumstances, and Tim knows that. 

“Oh right, yeah,” Dick tries to cover, even though the safe might be too late, the damage done. “He told me. Metropolis, right? The new trading center? He threatened to slip out and stay with the Kents if Bruce insisted on making him go.”

Yet again, it's Bruce who saves him, unknowingly, by reappearing after he finished his own clothes change. “I haven't gotten that call from Clark yet,” he says, in a deadpan tone that passes for an attempt at humor in Wayne-speak. “So I guess they're keeping a sharp eye on him.” Then he stalks towards the mat in long strides and starts stretching, while slips out behind the locker to change in private. That's another clue for Tim's pile, but he can't help it. Nudity, even partial, still raises the bad kind of goosebumps on his skin. It's bearable with Jason, like some many other things are, but in here... he just can't. He makes quick work of it, and after merely a minute, he rounds the locker again in his t-shirt and sweatpants, smiling and cracking his knuckles like nothing's out of the ordinary, and marches past Tim right to the mats. 

The preparations are mechanical: wrapping his fists, a quick warmup and stretch. He's been out of commission for longer, and he knows his body will remember how to move. He's not worried about not being able to fight. He's worried about what his mind might make of it. He's afraid of the ghosts hidden in those dark corners, and it's kind of ridiculous that he had to make it into his early twenties to first know how that feels like. So many years by the side of the mightiest shadow in Gotham, fighting real, actual monsters, and now he's getting skittish, met a fear he can't shake. 

Bruce crosses the mat and clamps a hand on his shoulder, like he's done a thousand times before, but right now it takes every ounce of self-control Dick to suppress a flinch in reaction. Somehow he manages to channel the fear into offensive action, rolling out from under Bruce's grip and into a kick, starting the spar. Fall back to instinct and muscle memory. Let his body take control, his brain turned off, the nervous shiver inside him on standby for a few blessed minutes. 

Retaliation doesn't take long at all, in the form of a kick and a punch, and Dick flips out from under his reach as soon as he's pegged the move. He attempts to take Bruce out by swiping him off his legs next, but Bruce manages to turn the attack into a counter-attack, using the energy and the motion needed to evade to swirl around for another kick. Dick jumps away once more. Another version of the same dance they've danced again and again and again over the years, and it feels _so_ good. It feels right and normal, like few things have for the past week. Bruce comes at him, and Dick parries and dives and strikes, and it's weirdly soothing and save: moving on instinct with his mentor on the other end of the fight, like they did a thousand times before. 

Dick's next kick connects with an audible thud, making Bruce stumble back half a step. He freezes there, surveying Dick, arms still raised in a defensive position. 

"Satisfied?" Dick asks, bouncing from foot to foot as he waits. "Or do you want another couple bruises before you believe me when I say I'm fine?"

Bruce lets his hands fall to his sides and steps away with a grunt, almost imperceptibly nursing his left side. “We're done here. I have a few phone calls to make upstairs." 

The answering laugh Dick sends after his retreating back isn't at all fake or front. It's genuine, and it earns him a dismissive wave as Bruce climbs up the stairs. 

Dick stretches his arms out over his head once more, savoring the new, small, _normal_ aches this fight left him with. He changes into jeans and a t-shirt from his locker, instead of back into his office clothes – those he'll leave at the dry cleaner's on his way home, frankly he's glad to be rid of them – and then wanders over to where Tim focusing his full attention on the computer display in front of him. The days in which Tim would still hang around to watch a play fight between his two mentors are long over, and he seems to have used the time to bury himself in an investigation. 

"What're you working on?" Dick asks, peering over his shoulder. 

“Surveillance videos from the harbor,” Tim replies, without missing a beat or tearing his eyes off the screen. “A new ring of drug smugglers. Been trying to prepare a case for GCPD, you know, figure out their routines and contacts.” Only then does he turn to glance at Dick. “Want to help? There's a lot of footage, and you know the old established dock gangs better than I do anyway. “

There's something hopeful in his expression, like he's craving the normalcy of working side by side nearly as much as Dick does, and Dick squeezes his shoulder and pulls up another chair. “Sure thing.” 

 

***

 

By the time Dick turns the key in the lock of his apartment, it's dark out. He doesn't expect to be met with the lights on in the living room, doesn't expect to find Jason stretched out on the couch, head pillowed on one armrest, feet dangling over the other, the TV shut down but the receiver still blinking. Must have nodded off while watching, then. Dick is almost tempted to leave him here and find something else to occupy himself with until Jason wakes. 

Almost. 

Dick is thrumming with energy. It's not just from the sparring, much less of a workout than his body is used to, or from the short detour into casework that tickled his mind back into following familiar patterns. He feels needed, wanted, reminded that he's part of something much bigger than himself and his current problems. He feels whole, and it's made even better by the fact that Jason stayed here – or returned here – to wait for him. For once he doesn't take it as pity or patronizing, but as concern. As caring. As... does he dare call it love? 

Maybe it really is. Maybe they did fall in love, at some point, during all this shit. The basement feels so far away now, so much longer ago than a mere week. Like it happened in another life, to someone else... no, like that was the other life, the other person, and Dick is finally back where he belongs. Or close enough that he can see the forest for the trees, like he just needs to reach out and haul himself back. It seems so easy, right now. 

Of course he's not stupid enough to believe it for real. Recovery is a winded road, and today's turned out to be a success, that's all. But that's all the more reason to make the best of it, to go for another win before the day is over. 

He crouches in front of the couch and gently shakes Jason's shoulder. Jason comes awake with a few slow blinks, sluggishly, and then with a jolt, shifting towards a defensive position before his mind even processed his whereabouts. Dick says his name, and Jason's gaze focuses on him. He sighs, shoulder sagging. 

“You're home,” he notes, rubbing his eyes, and yawns. Then it seems to dawn on him why he was waiting, where Dick was, and he sits up fully. “How was it?” 

Dick leans in and presses a quick kiss to his lips, for that question alone. For the strange domesticity of it. _Hey honey, how was your day?_ He grins. “Good. Better than I thought. It was nice, being with them. Being home.” 

Jason nods and gets to his feet. “I'm glad,” he says, yawning again. “Do you want to go to bed?” 

“Not exactly,” Dick says, rising to a stand as well, and threads their hands together once they're both upright. He noses at Jason's jaw, steals another kiss. “I want to make you feel good, too.” 

The idea happens in the second it takes him to draw back, and it's out before he can think twice about it, regret it or undo it. And it's the truth; he's in love, and he wants to do something normal. He's not soaring so high that he thinks he could handle sex – or anything that puts the attention on him, really – but there's things they can do that don't involve _him_ all that much. 

He rests the hand that isn't tangled with Jason's on the other's hips, just below the waistband of his jeans, and peers up at Jason, making full, shameless use of their height difference. Jason stares at him like he suggested pigs can fly and horses live underwater, but he doesn't move away when Dick moves his hand towards Jason's crotch. 

Dick rather suspects it's surprise and leftover sleepiness more than anything else that makes Jason pliant, and he forces himself to slow down, to meet Jason's eyes. 

“Hey,” he asks, his hand resting on the bare skin of Jason's stomach. “You with me?

Jason blinks, and Dick can see the moment when the situation unfolds for him, when he becomes all the way aware and tries to puzzle out what would be worse, going along or refusing. He swallows, wraps one hand around Dick's wrist where he's touching him. But he doesn't pull it away, not yet, he's just halting him. Requesting a time-out. “Are you sure you're up for this? I don't want – “

"None of that, okay?” Dick pleads, leaning in to brush their lips together again, barely a kiss, more mutual reassurance. “Not today, yeah? Trust me. You said you would. I feel good today, and I want to touch you, make you enjoy yourself." 

"I have no idea how to do this," Jason says, reaching up to touch Dick's face and run his fingers down Dick's cheek, and it seems like he means more than here, now. He means everything. He means dealing with Dick, such as he is now. 

Dick folds their hands together, kisses him again. "Come on, let me." He noses against Jason's jaw, feels the erratic pulse there, pretends it's pure arousal, not mixed with nerves or doubt. “I'm supposed to tell you what I want, right? What I need? Right now I need this.”

Angling his himself so he stands with one knee between Jason's leg, still, but ready to start rubbing against him the second he gets the go-ahead. And he does, in the form of Jason's hand falling away from his own, allowing him to venture further down while Jason begins, cautiously at first, to grind against him. He grows hard quickly, and Dick smiles into his skin. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Jason makes a noise low in his throat, then kisses him hard. 

Dick's happy to go along with that, happier still when the hand Jason had on his face inches down to hold onto Dick's arm just as soon as Dick works a hand into his boxers and works him out of them. Jeans and underwear pinned just underneath the swell of his ass, Dick starts jerking him off, quick and harsh and not meant to have him last too long. Jason's eyes flutter shut, and his hold on Dick's biceps tightens and loosens in rhythm with Dick's hand on his cock. He groans, and precome starts easing Dick's strokes. With it comes the tell-tale smell of arousal, and that, together with the noise, nips at bad memories. But he won't give in to them. He goddamn _won't_. 

He focuses on the look in Jason's eyes, the expression that's bathed in a soft kind of desire, hesitant pleasure, lingering surprise, and sex-stupid adoration. The face of someone who, Dick is rather sure, loves him in one way or another. Not a hint of malicious glee or the intent to use Dick's body and its reactions, its forced physical arousal, against him. There are many people Jason might wish pain on, or even death, and if pressed he wouldn't hesitate to deliver either, and Dick knows that. He never forgot. But despite what Dick's double-exposed memories are trying to tell him sometimes, he ceased to be one of them, ceased to be a target, and turned into something to be protected at all costs. He just needs to remember that, keep it in the back of his mind, and they'll still have a chance. 

It lasts maybe another two or three minutes, and then Jason holds his breath, pumping into Dick's hand gripping him, and comes. He lowers his head and for a moment, they stand there like that, breathing together, until Jason steps back and hectically puts himself away, wiping at his drying release with the hem of his shirt, like he can't stand the evidence of what they just did. 

“Oh shit, Dick, I'm – “ he starts, running a hand down his face, and Dick steps away, vigorously shakes his head. 

“Don't you fucking dare tell me you're sorry,” Dick spits, and it takes him a moment to understand why anger immediately boils through his veins. This was his idea. His call. The apology makes him feel coddled, like he's not in a state to make his own decisions, and that's so not how he wanted this day to end. This was supposed to be a... a celebration, in a way. 

Jason stares back at him, pushing the air out between clenched teeth in long, measured huffs. “I'm going to take a shower,” he announces. “I can turn the heating up if you want one too.”

Dick nods, for lack of anything real to say – he prefers not to think too hard about that, not infuse it with too much meaning – and Jason then turns and strides towards the bathroom, where he noisily shuts the door behind himself. Moments later, Dick hears the water run. 

Which leaves Dick standing in the living room, mind roiling, his hand sticky, with nothing to do. He looks at said hand and frowns at... he doesn't know. Jason's doubt, his insistence to take every one of Dick's choices upon himself. His own eagerness, trying to pinpoint how and where the situation went wrong just now. He shakes his head and wanders into the kitchen, washes his hands in the sink, and fixes himself a glass of water. 

His phone rings before he's got a chance to drink it, and he pats himself down to find it. The caller-ID tells him it's Babs. Not who he expected, but he picks up – the time of fielding calls is over. 

“Hey,” she says. “I just got a call from Tim.” 

Dick's blood freezes. Maybe he should have let it go to voicemail. At least then he could have dealt with it in the morning. 

“Okay?” he replies, hesitant, and takes a sip of water after all, worrying his throat might become too dry to speak otherwise. 

“He says he found someone from Frankie Oh's old gang in his harbor footage,” she says. “Given how many times the two of us talked him out of the worst nonsense before, I thought you'd like to tag along when I pay him a visit.” 

Dick bites his tongue to push down the sigh of relief that wants to escape him at the explanation. Frankie Oh is a small-time gang leader that's been around since Batman's early days. Not dangerous per se, but sometimes he gets delusions of grandeur and tries to hook his wagon to the big leagues. Giving him a bit of a shakedown and trying to loot out what he knows usually turns out in everyone's best interest. 

“Sure thing,” Dick replies, and just like that her call turned into something else to break the suffocating confines of the apartment. Another chance to get out, get back to what he's best at, without outright. looking for the kind of fight he couldn't handle yet. “Just tell me when and where.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so, so sorry I abandoned this story for so long. I wasn't in a good place, mentally, for quite some time, and I'm still playing catch up with a few fic-related things from last year. But I'm still working on this. Updates might be happening slower than they did last year, but this IS still in progress and I fully intend to finish it, that much I can promise.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued... 
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com).


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